


I Will Sing Your Name On High

by Airmid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dean/Cas Tropefest 2017, Destiel platonic, Gen, Possession, deancastropefest, season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-25 17:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12040935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airmid/pseuds/Airmid
Summary: This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, and heaven would probably agree with him. Dying angels, no side to be trusted and a rash decision bring Dean to the point where he finds the future of earth sits in his hands.Well, they aren’t just his hands anymore.A late season four AU, starting from The Rapture on. [Platonic/Pre-slash]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author Note: First, I would like to thank my lovely artist, Kuwlshadow, who you can find on both [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/search/kuwlshadow) and [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kuwlshadow) for providing the work for this story. This story's art can be found on AO3 [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12243909).
> 
> Background for this story – The prologue occurs directly after The Rapture and the rest is AU from ‘When the Levee Breaks’ on and some elements from later are seasons used. All relationships for this story are platonic so sorry, no epic romance in this one if that’s what you are looking for. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

 

** Prologue: **

 

“What the hell?”

He knew this now, being on the same dock as before when Cas had found him, half-frantic and paranoid of things listening inside his dreams. Back before heaven had gotten their hooks back in to reprogram him into his default bastard mode. When he had come to ask for help and been taken by who he called family; the scene of his fight against heaven leaving a warehouse a broken wreck, blood against the walls in strange patterns.

The dock he was on still the same as he always dreamt it, floating on a lake that mirrored the clouds lazily shifting against each other. The sun was low in the sky on a peaceful summer day, it’s light filtering through the puffs of white in the sky and through the trees, long shafts along the shore and wood.

That heaven could be listening now, well, it wasn’t a thought he wanted to entertain. That maybe this was just a show of power, of obedience. And he was the last person to try this trick on since he would never be their servant or anything else for that matter.

The angel was staring at him, radiating something like menace just a few feet away and he was so over all of this. Wanted to scream at Cas to get the hell out because what good had he been up to now?

“Turn it down, would you, Vader. What is this?”

“You keep praying,” the angel said, words hissed out. As if praying was some sort of crime now and he shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets.

“So? Never bothered you before. Hell, you barely answer half the time, if at all. Gotta say, don’t feel all that needed by heaven if you all are willing to let me lie bloody and dying somewhere with my only backup being my binge blood drinking brother and a demon. ”

Cas was just there in his face and he refused to flinch, to step back, to show some kind of weakness because that was the only move he had left. Eyes were burning in front of him with something that wasn’t of earth. Nothing left to offer, so he made himself grin, something wide and sneering because attitude was the only card in his deck.

“It is not just about your brother.”

“Oh, are you actually concerned about that now?” He shook his head, laughing something that wasn’t bright. “Give me a break. You don’t give a rat’s ass about my brother. You don’t give a rat’s ass about me, about any of us or this. Just your own hid and whatever order sends you here.”

“Stupid, boy,” came the growl, a hand on his shirt dragging him closer and he refused to let his feet move. “I told you that I –“

“Yeah, yeah, you serve heaven not humans. And definitely not me. Got that loud and clear, man.” The fist all caught in the fabric of his shirt relaxed slightly as Dean upped the wattage on his smirk and leaned forward. “Except you wanted to tell me something real bad before they carted you off.”

“I could break you a thousand times before you became aware of the first.”

“Competing with demons?” he spat, watching those eyes narrow. “Coward. That’s all you are. Help when it’s easy, run when the going gets hard and someone might bleed.”

A gust of wind through his little dream paradise fishing spot and he’d never get this back. One more thing ruined. There was pressure all around them, something that was pure angel and he made himself not slouch, made himself feel like a steel frame was rammed in him instead of bones. The water began to wave, breaking up the flawless surface as if the sky was shattering.

“Whatever the hell it was you wanted to say wasn’t all that unimportant, was it? Something they don’t want us to know, what you aren’t supposed to spill. Yet here you are, probably screwing me over like the rest of world, and making like I give a crap about heaven’s little plan.”

“You do care about Sam, though.”

The truth was a bitch, no matter what his brother had done to himself, to him. “You threatening Sam?”

That hand released him, Cas taking a step back, still tense but not making another move towards him.

“Not at this time.”

“Well, good to know, then.” He smoothed out his shirt, the angel had gripped so hard that there was now a small cluster of impossible to remove wrinkles. Stupid angels and their shirt mucking ways and he had to remember this wasn’t real. “I don’t expect you to get it. That there’s a right and a wrong and I’m pretty damn sure that whatever they had to drag you back up there for was wrong. Really, really wrong.”

Cas took another step back, slight hesitation that if he had blinked he would have missed. That face didn’t waver, still filled with righteous fury and whatever the hell else they pumped into them when they stopped by home for a tune up.

“I cannot help you. Do not pray to me about it again.”

And that was that. Alone on the dock, things falling back into their pre-pissed off angel state and he swore. Like he was just going to drop something this big, so damn important that it still resonated on the goddamn air here. He needed to know because Sam was probably dying and Bobby was cracking and he was no good. There had to be an out somewhere so at least the world wouldn’t split open like a rotten egg.

“This isn’t over,” he yelled at the sky that wasn’t real, still overcast with the glow of a hidden sun. “You hear me, Castiel? I aint your salvation and the stopper of apocalypses and whatever you know, I’ll find out. I swear it.”

There was no answer, just the water in its calm movements as he sank down to his knees not ready to wake up. The wood felt so real here, rough and splintery and he rubbed his hands on it, wanting it to be reality. He needed to get those fragments under his skin so that there wasn’t a promise of what was waiting for him when he did open his eyes back at Bobby’s.

“Damn you,” he whispered as the dream wavered, waking a looming threat. “You had the chance, why didn’t you take it, Cas?”


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

 

“Cas?”

Everything was swimming, vision a twisting blur of colors and nausea was inching up his throat as he managed to get out the name. A vague, distant sensation of something sharp pressing into his back and he wondered if it was wood or the shattered glass he was on top of cutting away at his shirt.

Sam was gone, that much was clear and he fought to get his breath back, trying to clear his mind because he had to get out. There would be questions. People would have heard the noise and he couldn’t stay here. The idea that Sam was really gone, not just physically was something he couldn’t let himself dwell on. He couldn’t let himself think of Sammy strangling him with something that wasn’t his brother but whispered of damnation as the prospect of a return trip of hell swelled under his feet in those few moments.

A pressure against his forehead as everything cleared but before he could get words out the world swayed, a mess of images going by too fast and he cursed the idea of angel airlines.

“Really? A warning would be nice,” he said, pushing himself up to his knees when the movement stopped.

Where ever they were was far too bright and he blinked a few times, nausea still a thing trying to liberate his stomach contents. Rubbing his eyes he noticed they were somewhere that looked like a park, well maintained grass and a play area. Squeezing his eyes shut he opened them again, adjusting to the sudden change in scenery a bit better and got all the way to his feet.

“I apologize,” the angel said, voice neutral and decidedly not apologetic. “They were coming.”

“Who?”

Nothing. There was no answer as Cas stared off into a distant horizon as if he were totally alone. Which was unhelpful to say the least. Dean rubbed his arm, trying to get a handle on things because something even more than Sam was off here.

“Cas, man, what’s going on?”

“We are in danger.”

“From Sam or hell?”

A look over and there was something in those eyes, that face that was typically so unemotional that stared back at him and Dean got an uneasy sense. That feeling of just plain off was growing at a frantic rate, bubbling under his skin.

“Heaven?” he asked, because that was the only option left.

The deep line that formed by the angel’s mouth was more confirmation than he needed.

Freaking heaven and he dragged his hand through his hair, feeling the short ends rub against his palm in some kind of comforting way. As if it was proof that he was still real and life was not this messed up.

“Look, I can’t keep doing the whole flying thing. I mean I’m grateful you’re here healing me, don’t get me wrong, but the whole whisking around the world? Don’t think I’m built for that.”

As if he hadn’t heard Cas grabbed him again as the world cycled by. It was always so fast, a second or two and he knew he was seeing everything at hyper speed, like he had hit fast forward while in a full out sprint. Not that landing somewhere far darker helped his state of mind as he looked around. Some abandoned warehouse with its roof half caved in, steel beams like great slopes against a cracked concrete floor. The signs covered in dust and years had squiggles on them that he felt was writing and not of the English kind.

“We need to create a false trail,” Cas said, picking up a steel pipe that looked remarkably heavy as Dean took a step back. “It would be better after if we did not fly.”

“Well, that’s good news. We are going back to the states, right?”

A glance and Cas was off carving something into the floor, his forever trench coat swaying around his legs at the motion. Tie still askew, dark hair with its strange ‘just woke up’ angles and Dean wondered if angels sweated. After a few minutes of watching the angel work he felt that they didn’t. Given the angels that he had met so far he felt they would be appalled at such a thing. Though the idea of Uriel carefully applying speed stick to keep himself fresh before smiting an entire city made him laugh.

“So, you going to tell me what’s going on? Or are you just going to drag me around on the worst nickel tour of the world ever?”

Whatever he had been doing seemed to be finished and Cas started towards him, steel pipe in hand. Dean took another step back, something under his boots making a cracking sound. Cas looked at the pipe, then dropped it disinterested on the floor before he walked forward and grabbed his shoulder again, the world dropping away.

“Could we not do that?”

It was hot, so damn hot as he peeled off his outer shirt, the sun again a bright sphere trying to strip away his vision. A touch against his forehead and the intensity of at least that eased.

Tying his shirt around his waist he could see nothing but scrub brush and a vast array of brown. There were distant mountain peaks, one with actual snow on it and he wished he was up there rather than melting here, the earth simmering all around them.

Cas was back to whatever art project he was so pre-occupied with, conjuring a stick or finding one or he just didn’t friggin’ know at this point. The earth yielded to it and given how cracked and thirsty it was, Dean felt that had to be the strongest stick in all of creation.

“What the hell is going on?”

Finally a pause. Some sort of reaction and he crossed his arms against his chest, sweat already a sticky top layer along his skin.

“There is right and there is wrong,” Cas answered, his voice flat, words intoned so crisply they were a sudden noise against the still air.

“Yeah, and what is this?”

“Right.”

The angel sounded sure of himself, finishing his little circle thing in the ground with symbols that Dean had never seen before. Though it was closer to him this time around and he could take it in. Some complex almost wheel like design with lines drawn through it and symbols etched against the outer rim. A part of him understood that perhaps this was an evasive technique but he didn’t get why heaven would be actively hunting either one of them. What the hell had he done except be mauled by Sam?

“And that would entail?”

“One more, and we will return to where we left.”

No more of a warning and as things leveled out he was thrilled that at least they weren’t in a building about to collapse on top of them or being burned to death. Instead it was a forest, thick and almost dark in the shadows cast by the trees that had to be old. Just how big they were made the whole place give an ancient feel let alone the large plants nestled at their bases.

“Won’t they, uh, see these?” he asked as Cas began to draw again after kicking away a bed of pine needles.

“Invisible.”

“And this is?”

“Misdirection. Heaven will not pick up my movements so easily.”

“And we are doing what, Cas? Why do we suddenly need this?”

The angel paused for a moment in his drawing, figure swaying slightly as if he was trying to find the words to inform his little human just what the hell this was all about.

“I will tell you when I am sure we are safe.”

That was all he was going to get. He already knew it as Cas went back to his etching and he looked around. There was an unfamiliarity with the trees here, like he knew what kind they were but not really. Which probably meant they still weren’t back in his own damn country. A part of him would like to believe he was in Canada because at least he could work his way back from that. If they were trapped in Europe that was a whole other ball of wax and Bobby would be livid if he had to engineer a way to get him home from, like, Germany. Wasn’t like he could even bring the old man a beer sample if that was the case.

The wheel thing that Cas was working on looked the same as the last, and he tried to learn it. Not that he knew what it meant but maybe it was some kind of thing that jammed angel radar. Maybe it made them fly in circles or crash into a mountain.

That last thought made him smile a bit until he thought how fascinated Sam would have been by this. At least, back when Sammy was still himself and not evil. Maybe he hadn’t saved him fast enough, maybe the black eyed bastards really were right – that his brother hadn’t returned from hell properly. That pieces of him had been left behind, for both of them.

Cas was done and a hand on his shoulder, stripping all his thoughts away and he was so done with this. As the words almost tumbled out to demand they stop the whole flying crap he realized they were a block down from where he had found Sam and his demon bitch.

“Cas?”

“It would be best to cease flying. I assume you drove.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, running a hand again through his hair. “Baby’s close by.”

The angel walked with him and it felt like he had a terminal case of jet lag. Everything ached, there was an exhaustion that felt beyond what he had ever felt heavy against him. Humans were definitely not made to experience that kind of travel. As much as he hated airplanes he was pretty sure he could endure them if it meant not doing that shit ever again.

A sound, something so fast as they turned the corner, Baby faithfully waiting for them and it took a second to know what the hell had just happened, Cas falling to his knees.

That fat sleazy angel was beside them, the one that had made him into some kind of corporate shill as he grabbed Cas’ arms, the angel sagging more. There was something in the other’s hand, something that gleamed in the low light from the street lamps, silver partly coated in a watery red.

“Zachariah,” the man said, a smile stretching across his face. “Didn’t expect your little brain to remember.”

“What the hell is going on?”

Cas was slumped against him, sounds like words trying to form but failing at lift off. A few more of the winged dicks where here, standing back in the shadows, watching them. All perfect little soldiers in their suits and polished shoes and he wondered if heaven demanded some kind of uniform when they were wearing humans.

“Don’t panic yourself, Dean,” Zachariah said, his weapon disappearing. “We’re actually here to help you.”

“Now, why don’t I believe that?”

He tried for some kind of mocking tone as Cas sagged more, his friend’s breath ragged, hands doing something and he hoped it was a healing touch.

“Castiel is a traitor to heaven.”

“I don’t – “ he stopped, feeling confused as he stared down at the almost limp form in his arms. “Cas?”

All he got was a choked noise, something wet and drawn out.

“As I said, Dean, we are here to help you from whatever his little plan was. And you can bet it wasn’t to save Sam. We can help you save not only him but the whole wide world.”

Zachariah was peering down at them and he wondered why they hadn’t just up and killed Cas. One of his hands tightened on his arm and Dean felt his stomach churn. The other stooges where still in the shadows, watching as he felt the sidewalk grind against his knees. Cas was still moving one of his hands, he didn’t know what he was doing but maybe it got them out of this.

“Lies.” Cas finally got something out and Zach, to his credit, stiffened.

“Words of a betrayer. You turned your back on your whole family and for what? This? The only reason you aren’t dead is that I’m supposed to bring you home. I think you know who would like the honors of that deed.”

A shudder against him and Dean wondered if it was God. Was God that pissed that he was going to torture an angel to death?

Something about that didn’t sit right with him.

“All you do is lie,” Cas said, his voice more firm and Dean looked down, finally catching a design in the light that was close to where they knees touched. Another type of symbol, like those that Cas had carved which had apparently been for nothing because the assholes just waited by his car. A whole little patchwork of squiggle lines made out of blood, like what Ana had drawn in blood and he knew.

“Don’t!”

Zachariah’s voice was sharp and Dean slammed the angel’s hand down against the blood, a hand almost reaching them before he had to slam his eye shuts against the sudden flashes of light and tortured screams.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

 

“Come on, don’t you bleed out back there!”

Baby’s engine was roaring, she was actually feeling the pull of all the horses free as they raced across the back roads. It wasn’t dark but it should be. The only light should be the dash and Baby’s lights bouncing against the pitch colored tarmac and damn this was bad. It was brighter, that terrible bloom of white getting larger. Some facet of it filled his thoughts with ideas of dawn and birth and tried to press his foot down farther.

There wasn’t anywhere for it to go, pedal already flat to floor as the air rushed over the frame; a weird shriek in its own right.

Think, Winchester, fucking think.

It wasn’t like they could outrun heaven, not really in the long run, just buy a couple of hours and Cas, what the hell had Cas done? Running and running and running before dear old Zachariah had found them and now they were running all over again.

“Cas, I want to hear a sound off.”

A rustle, somehow heard above the sound of wind roaring around them at top speed and his own racing thoughts as Dean curled his hands tighter on the wheel.

Bobby’s was probably out because if Cas knew he could be found there than his dickhead brother’s probably did too. Not a guarantee but they seemed sharper than their demon counterparts, though a well-rounded rock probably was giving how little forethought most demons put into things. Couldn’t take the chance because it would mean they could just walk right back into heaven’s hands. And it wasn’t like he could just drive to the nearest ER and ask if they could toss in a couple of stitches to keep all that light seeping out from doing that.  
Wasn’t like he had a way to outrun an angel. With a miracle maybe they could get far enough that the scent was lost for a little while, like crossing a river to confuse the hounds nipping at your heels.

“Dean.”

It’s weak and hoarse and he didn’t like that sound. No sir, he did not like that tone in Cas’ voice one bit.

“Yeah buddy? We’re putting down distance. Promise.”

“Dean.”

More insistent now and he eased off the gas, feeling the strain on the engine flow out as they rolled to a stop on the shoulder. Beating back his panic because he knew angels died. Knew that they could blow up to leave scorched wings on the earth and wasn’t that just the worst joke? The biggest things of this whole forsaken universe and even they could die.

It wasn’t good, that much was clear. Cas‘ hands were over the wound in his side when he made himself look back, eyes pained at how bright it was when the rest of the world was lost to night. Fractured beams of light twisting around those hands as Cas was somehow still so frigging calm, eyes large and staring.

“Heaven wants –“A cough and angels don’t do that. They shouldn’t do that as Dean helplessly sat, unable to do one damn thing to stop any of this. “Wants Lucifer out. Using Sam to end Lilith to do it.”

Shit, this was so bad and it kept getting worse the further along they got as he pressed his fist against his forehead, trying to think. There had to be something but he had nothing and dad’s field kit probably wasn’t going to fix this.

“Would stitching it up make it –“

“No.”

All he could see was Cas seeping out, little spots all over his vision if he tried to focus somewhere else, like on the blood that had to be everywhere at this point. There wasn’t a way it couldn’t be.

“Can’t keep together.”

A weird grimace to that face, like something close to an apology and Dean dragged himself half over the front seat to try and see what was going on. Cas’ fingers where shifting over the wound, trying to push together more, almost like hiding instead of trying to shove the cosmic stardust that he was made up of back in where it belonged.

“Tell me. Tell me what you need.”

Another head shake, a weird pressure in his head from staring at that light.

“No, you won’t tell me or no, there aint nothing and we’re completely screwed?”

Cas let out another breath he didn’t need and stared up at him. Something, he wasn’t asking for something as Dean arranged himself so he could stare down better, half over the back seat with a hand on one of the headrests to steady himself. There was fear and something else and it was so hard to decipher angel because apparently God hadn’t thought far enough ahead to program these bastards with facial expressions.

Except.

Except he knew and he swallowed because that was a tall order but this creature was dying trying to help him. Dying to give him a chance to at least try to reel Sam in from the ledge when he had wanted to walk. Trying to save the whole damn world and Dean had to give it if they were going to have a chance to bring Sam home.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Stupid, stubborn angels.

“Yes, I consent to you taking me as a vessel. Temporary,” he waved a finger at that face before almost losing his balance in his precarious position. “I get to be the driver.”

“No.”

“Do it, Cas, or I will never fucking forgive you if you flame out on my backseat.”

Every molecule around them seemed to pause, air thick, the reality of the world spiraling away from him as the light stopped its flow, as if time itself had inhaled in anticipation.

It was fast, so brilliant and bright and quick. It felt like a galaxy being poured down his throat and through all parts of him. Suddenly he wondered how big Cas was. He had to bigger than him as he felt his skin tight, his bones groan as he lost track for that second of where they even were. It was a star inside him, pulsing with a heat that was almost incinerating before it settled. Feeling began coming back to his joints, fingers flexing as he still held that same position as before.

The sense of something small, a blue flame at the edge of his mind, receding and coiling up on itself.

Jimmy.

Dean fumbled because that was all it seemed like he was capable of and found a wrist. Faint, so damn hard to find that he thought it wasn’t there at first but it was. A pulse, enough still left in that body for the heart to beat and he was out of the car without even thinking, grabbing the kit with the surgical tape.

Everything was a mess, shirt soaked back into the coat and Dean ripped the cloth, revealing the single wound that was still oozing and so not good. He did what he could as fast he could, fingers moving and wet because he couldn’t apply pressure and drive, yet couldn’t risk all the blood just flowing out on the way to help. Still some chest movement, shallow with a rattling drag at the end of each push but something. It was something.

Lights in the distance, he saw them when he was slamming the door. There had been signs before going by so fast they blurred all the white lettering together but it was a city. Something with a doctor and they just had to make it till then.

“Hang in there, Jimmy. It’s gonna be okay man, gonna get you help.”

He was back behind the wheel, hands stained in red as Baby obediently roared to life. Now they had a whole new reason to speed as he sent them hurtling towards the line of lights that were close but seemed like they existed in an entirely different country with what he had going on.

“Cas?”

Silence for almost too long, that maybe he had lost the angel in the middle of all of that.

_‘I am here.’_

He wiped at his face absently until he remembered he was probably leaving blood streaks and mentally reprimanded himself. Didn’t need to look like a survivor of Carrie’s prom on top of everything else. Instead he focused himself on something he could do in this moment, save Jimmy.

The rest, if his brother could be saved, well he didn’t have enough left to dwell on that as the lights drew closer.

 

* * *

 

 

_‘You are exhausted.’_

“No shit, Sherlock,” he got out, leaning his head heavy against the wheel. Voices in his head were not helping this current too tired to move state. Though he figured he had been heard all the same with the sensation of Cas folding in on himself more. “I didn’t mean – damn it.”

They were in a parking structure across town from the hospital as dawn was just finally getting off her ass to break, barely visible through the openings between the support beams. There had been public restrooms here and no one about to look at the man with blood on his cloths after they had dropped Jimmy at the first hospital in sight and then just drove.

Running. All they seemed to be doing was constantly running.

His backseat was a mess, it was obvious even in the dull glow of lights and just there presence of morning and he had thrown a blanket and one of their bags back there to hide it. Tried to keep the blanket wedged up against the door that showed smears of blood from where he had shoved the angel in. Blood on the floor boards, spatters and a pool, covered by one of Sam’s jackets and Dean was finally thankful his brother was just so huge. Last thing he needed were stares and probing questions and people freaking out about the dude with the blood filled car.

At least he had been able to wash most of the blood off himself and change clothes though there were still little traces pushed in under his nails.

_‘I am sorry but we should continue further. They will track my vessel to this city soon.’_

He nodded, running a hand down his face and trying not to feel like this was some weird form of violation. Cas sounded like he had in Jimmy but not, all ancient and without form tucked up and taking up space behind his ribs.

A pang, a strange sensation of remembering that he had forgotten over and over that there was a soul all wrapped up in their shit. Some poor faithful shmuck that prayed every day and thought it was a blessing when an angle answered. A lost follower whose family was probably still shell shocked over losing him a second time and he wasn’t sure if he had made it past the ER doors with a foot still on this side of living.

A bright, sharp feeling of shame rang through and then it was gone.

“Cas?”

_‘You will remain in control and I will leave when I am able to. We must continue.’_

Seeing as feelings and honesty weren’t up there on his to do list of crap to talk about, he silently agreed and turned the keys. Baby always hummed like a dream and dad would be proud of how she kept up. Maybe not so much the back seat, and he grimaced as he glanced to check behind them. Wasn’t like it was the first time someone had been bleeding and dying in here though and he threw her into reverse.

There weren’t a lot of cars as he made his way through the lot, following the small maze of white arrows like a modern white rabbit which was definitely not good for his headspace this morning. The gate was still up, free parking before they lowered it and milked the public out of more money during busy hours.

Morning sun glared off the haze of dust and grim on the windshield and he squinted against it. Where they were, well he had a foggy notion of that but that wasn’t the important information here.

“Where am I driving to?”

_‘I do not know where Sam is. That was kept hidden. Drive towards the prophet as he may be able to assist us.’_

“Great, you want me to go towards the guy with the heavenly gorilla bodyguard?”

_‘Yes.’_

He sighed, trying not to smile because it was earnest and rather terrifying at how honest Cas was. Even in him and he didn’t like it but it was necessary. Because he didn’t know if they could get Sam back, if there was even a chance of that at all.

The hate on that face that stared down at him, the one person that he loved the most in this whole wide world wanted him dead.

_‘All we can do is try to speak to him.’_

“Yeah sure,” he said, swiping at his face, trying to keep his thoughts from breaking through to consciousness since there was a nosy angel in there now. Somehow he got an image of Cas reclining in there surrounded with photo albums marked for each portion of his life, thumbing through them at his leisure.

A chime, a quiet noise that reminded him of thin bells shaking together, echoed.

“Stop that,” he told the empty car, feeling more like he was sliding towards insanity. Padded rooms were looking better and better right now as he got them going in the general direction of one alcoholic, prophet of the Lord.

_‘I apologize. I cannot help some things but I thought it was kind. Untrue, but kind.’_

Dean rolled his eyes, farms and trees flowing past as the rising sun flickered through the trunks and over the land to chase back the shadows. Seeing Sam, well he didn’t know if he could do this. That after what his little brother had done, had left him on the floor half-conscious he wanted to be done. To be the one that walked away instead of the one that was left.

If it wasn’t for the looming end of the world he would pack up his angel passenger and maybe go see the sights. Somehow, after driving all of this damn country he had yet to see the Grand Canyon and he had an urge to turn them around and start racing towards that.

_‘You would regret it.’_

“He burned his bridges when he walked out. Again.”

_‘You still love him and while he has been poisoning himself I believe you are the one that can stop him.’_

“Whatever,” he told the empty car, grateful no one could see him talking to thin air.

Not that he wanted to think about this. Or the fact that perhaps heaven had sent Cas as their own version of Ruby to lull him into a fake sense of security to lead him by the nose into whatever trap they had set to spring.

‘ _Do you truly believe that?’_

It was going to be a hot day here, he could already feel his palms sweating and he wished had had taken off his jacket. The sun continued her glares, light darting in through the windshield and striking anything that could shine up into a blinding type of gleam.

“No,” he finally said because it was the truth and Cas shifted a bit, which was still not something he wanted to think hard about. “No, I don’t think so but it still,” he took a breath, fingers flexing against the wheel. “They dragged you off. Long con and all of that.”

_‘I see.’_

For a moment he thought the angel might just leave. Drag his Lite-Brite ass off to go die somewhere and he’d be totally on his own with a lot of angry things sniffing for him.  
It terrified him and he didn’t know why.

_‘I can offer you words but they mean little now. All I can do is prove to you that I mean what I say – we need to stop their plans. If I die, so be it, as long as earth still stands.’_

He choked down a ‘why’ and rolled his head, trying to stretch out the stiffness in it. “So why aren’t we flying then? Not that I’m encouraging that because I still hate it.”

_‘I am gravely injured. I can keep us hidden on the ground with the spell I carved out. The more grace I use, the more revealed we will be. Though perhaps your Bobby can assist as well.’_

“My Bobby?” He laughed because Bobby would glower and scowl and stomp around at that moniker alone.

Of course, he sobered right up because he was going to have to explain this messed up situation and face that wrath. Bobby was going to be pissed, so pissed, and Dean felt like he had failed all over again by letting an angel in.

There was a sensation of warmth just under his skin as he fished his phone out of his pocket. Something like, well he couldn’t name it but it was there, fleeting as the angel settled back down into something more relaxed. As if he knew how to do that even remotely and Dean definitely doubted it as he glanced at the last dialed numbers while making sure Baby stayed on the road.

Sam’s name, of course, was at the top.

_‘We do not currently know his mindset. It is best to refrain from contacting him yet.’_

Dean nodded because that was all there was to do. Right now, the deal was the half dead angel and heaven wanting to spring Lucifer to start a battle royale.

Somehow, that was easier to focus on then Sam.

“Boy, where have you been?”

“Can’t say, Bobby,” he said, glancing out the window as if angels would just appear on the roadside like an army of lost hitchhikers. “Last time I’m calling you from this phone. Gonna toss it for a while. I need you to find out where Sam is.”

“He aint with you?”

“Nope and that’s bad. Real bad and we’re in a lot of trouble.” He tried to settle back in his seat, to make himself ease up a bit before he simply crushed the phone against his palm. The open road, free of congestion, wasn’t the comfort it normally was. “World ending kind. Watch your back. I’ll be in touch.”

Without fanfare he ended the call and with practiced hands he pulled the battery out of his phone. So many phones wasted this way, he mourned as he rolled down the window. Extending his arm he launched them into the moving air, their high speed clatter as they hit the asphalt not even audible.

There was little left to do except make a bee line towards Chuck and hope that maybe Sam could refrain from ending the world till they figured out where he was. Well and not dwell on that second thing currently in his skin that could screw him over at any moment.

Somehow, someway, something had to give and in the end he hoped it wasn’t him as he pushed the gas down more, staving off exhaustion for a few more hours.

 

* * *

 

 

He was sitting in the car, the door hanging open but he knew that wasn’t right. This wasn’t right because his eyes had been so tired that he had pulled over. They should be off to the side while he rested for a few and not in the middle of a huge meadow filled with every conceivable flower mixed between tall blades of grass. It had a haunting, familiar quality, as though he had seen anything like it before and he shook his head, trying to clear out the webs of uncertainty before noticing the angel leaning up against the back door.

“Cas?” he asked, getting himself out, that head just turning slightly to him. He looked like he had as Jimmy. “We still good on earth, right? Nothing coming to eat us?”

“We are safe. It is simply easier for me to speak to you this way with how we are and you were in need of rest that I could not grant you.”

“How we are?”

As if he needed anything that could make something living in him a bit worse and Dean closed the door, liking the clean scent of the air, something pure and crisp and untouched. There was a feeling of boundlessness here, as if he started running all of this would never end, a weird sensation of ceaseless beginnings. It almost gave him a dizzy, head spinning feeling.

Probably needed to lay off the deep thoughts.

“Yes.”

“You know that is not real clear, right? I mean even by your standards.” Dean rubbed the back of head, gazing up into the sky that was spread out and deep like a flawless sapphire. “I mean you’re already squatting in me, temporarily I will point out, so why is this easier?”

“Souls are what generate your dreams.”

Dean opened his mouth to ask what the hell that had to do with anything when he knew. Holy hell, he knew and he should be livid instead of just wanting to melt off the face of the earth. Cas was by his soul. That battered, beat to shit thing that was so full of slices not just courtesy of hell but his entire screwed existence.

How it hadn’t unraveled by this point when it felt as if the rest of him should have he didn’t know.

“It is strong.”

“Shut up, Cas.”

“I knew when I laid eyes upon you, still glorious in hell –“

“I said shut it, Cas!”

His head was banging against the door frame and he found himself laid out against the front seat because the back was still a hidden portal into nightmare land. It felt like early afternoon and the smell of exhaust from the nearby road was stuck in his throat. Mouth all cotton dried and he got himself up, a slight sheen of sweat on his skin as his eyes unglued.

A green light on the floor caught his attention. The throwaway he had picked up at the last gas stop before he understood that he couldn’t keep focus and the yellow lines where blending with the white against the grey background of the highway. Charging complete and he pulled it, flipping it open. The blank screen flashed with a logo as he powered it on, Cas stirring with him and he choked back words. Demands that the angel leave because he didn’t agree to whatever was happening in there.

_‘I did not mean to upset you.’_

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want a hitchhiker so guess we’re even,” he spat and regretted it as he felt Cas fade to that small point in his mind. That blue flame he kept imaging when the welcome screen came up on screen and he punched in Bobby’s number.

“Singer Salvage.”

“Bobby, tell me you got something good because I need it right now.”

“Sam’s up in Maryland. At least one of his phones says he is at any rate. I’d say that boy is smarter than that but probably not right now. Want to tell me what the blue bloody hell is going on now?”

“Heaven wants the big show down, not stop it,” he said, words feeling thick and foreign in him as he pulled Baby out into traffic. He had to piss like a son-of-a-bitch and there was too much traffic here to take care of that on the side of the road.

“What?”

“You heard me. Cas grabbed me. Lilith is –“ he paused. He didn’t have the right word, just that she couldn’t die and nosy wings inside him grew a bit brighter at the request for some input.

_‘The death of the first of the damned shall be the last to unlock the serpent from his prison.’_

“Great,” he muttered.

“Are you talking to someone else, boy? I asked you a question here.”

“Look,” he said, bladder damn near bursting and he for thrilled at the gas station coming up, closed or not. Most likely closed given the scrawl of loving graffiti on the side he could fully see, bright splashes against peeling beige. “If Lilith goes bye-bye then Satan comes out for the ball.”

“Balls.”

Bobby had to be thinking some big thoughts over on his end as he pulled into the lot of the run down joint and sprinted to the side. If there had ever been a lock it was long gone and he so did not care because it was the only covered area and too many cars meant no pissing into the brush. Even the back could be seen partially from the road and he did not feel like being noticed for something so menial.

With the windows of thick security glass it was actually bright, smelled like an incontinent cat had called it home for a year and harbored nothing but him and probably sixteen new diseases. Not that it mattered, he just needed a place and was ready when he froze because this body wasn’t just him anymore.

“Shit,” he muttered, that small chime sound again as he felt Cas recede back further.

“Damn right, you idjit,” Bobby said, still seemingly lost in his own mind for the moment.

Staring at the grubby tile that was laced with cracks and some of it missing he tried to get his bladder to unhitch. There was some black fuzzy something that seemed to be oozing along the top of the chrome. A breed of that special kind of mold that grew in these places and he wrinkled his nose.

 _Not any different that pissing beside Sam_ , he told himself. _Done that for years, too many times to really care. Cas don’t care, why should you?_

Finally, freaking finally, the knots loosened and he tried not to sigh in relief.

“So what about that angel of yours? He in on it too?”

“Ah, no. Can definitely say not in on it. They stabbed him.”

Another pause and he got himself all tucked back, eyeing the interesting state of the sink. Sam always kept tiny little bottles of that antibacterial rub in the glovebox because it would be Sammy buying the little prissy flower scented gunk out of those tubs by registers.

“Double balls. Sorry, Dean.”

“Well, ah don’t be sorry just yet,” he was saying, happy to be out of that mix bag of smells and back into open air. He got the passenger door open, going for the glove box for the little bottle of that orange stuff that promised to kill every germ currently trying to set up shop on him when Cas pushed forward inside, weak but frantic.

“Call you back,” he said, sliding the phone from his ear as he slowly turned.

Zachariah was there, blocking the exit of the lot in all his pompous glory, all suited in his business attire like he was here to close a deal and not stomp faces into the pot hole ridden ground. He tried for the biggest shit eating grin he could muster as he pulled out his gun. Fat lot of good it would do against a winged dick but he wasn’t going down without some kind of resistance, feeble mud monkey that he was.

“Michael’s been calling, Castiel. I see why you won’t pick up though.” A note harsh under those words, predatory, as the bastard started walking towards them, chums meeting up for a talk. “Got yourself a whole new setup, I see. You know Michael’s going to be real unhappy getting a used product.”

“What the hell are you on about?”

“Didn’t he tell you?” The angel before him tried for something like innocence as if he understood it and Dean wondered what this sick game was as he kept his weapon raised and steady. “You’re Michael’s ride to the big show. The one and only sword of heaven and he will take out any wrinkles in the merchandise he finds on your angel buddy in there. Well before firing him and Dean, let me tell you, that’s literal for us.”

_‘Dean, I –‘_

“Doesn’t matter,” because it didn’t. He gave consent for this, to help something trying to save him from these assholes. “If Mikey wants me so bad he should come get me himself. Would rather deal with him than your fat, smug ass.”

“See, something as big and old as him needs something extra special,” Zachariah said, waving a hand as a blade materialized in it. “Why that’s you out of all these little shit crawling maggots I can’t guess, but that’s the way it goes.”

“Sorry, no dealsies then.”

A pause, Zach tilting his head up and Dean wondered what the hell he was doing before it dawned on him maybe it was angel radio. He wondered if Zach was really that stupid to be out here alone with them and then decided not to bring that up. Catastrophes loved company and he was damned if they needed more.

“Tell you what, kiddo. Today is your lucky day. Michael has a deal for you that I think you’re going to like.”

“Talk.”

“You trade us Castiel and we’ll let you go running after your brother. You won’t be able to stop him and we’ll grab you when you fail but maybe you’ll understand why you were supposed to be with us. Whose side you’re hitting for.”

The feeling of Cas pushing up more inside of him, the angel staring through his eyes to see if this was real. As if he was going to just hand him over to be tortured and killed. Not even to save Sam.

_‘He speaks the truth.’_

“No.”

“Even that little traitor you’re harboring wants this. Everybody wins. Well,” Zach grinned, waving his sword at them, “maybe not everybody. But you do, Dean and that’s what you want isn’t it? To go save that lumberjack you call a brother before he and his six layers of flannel get themselves in more trouble.”

His hands were steady as he made himself stare straight into that face that seemed bloated by something he couldn’t name. His thumb hit the hammer, cocking his weapon as a warning. “Tell me something, you just swiped him last time. What’s so special you need me to eject him now?”

No answer, though he was certain Cas more than likely had an answer for this little enigma he wasn’t spitting up just now. Zach shifted, probably still talking to the head honcho up on his heavenly cloud too big and important to be here in person. Otherwise, it was just them in a parking lot full of crumbly pavement and holes collecting water with floating fragments of debris.

If Cas trusted him enough to come to him, to break the rules, he wasn’t going to stop now.

“What, am I too cramped for housing for two?”

“Clock’s ticking, Dean. Still time to try. You aren’t going to make it but if it makes you feel all warm and gooey on the inside we’ll let you.”

The echo of the shot was loud, the rapport his answer as the bullet hit Zachariah between the eyes. A heavy sigh, and he was being thrown past Baby against the wall of the old station. The only thing that stopped him from going through it was the damn thing seemed to be made of cinder blocks and concrete.

A flood of sick and confusion was over him as he slide down, something was broken, probably more than just one something. Cas was unfurling more in him and it was so strange, a brief flash of an image, something so damn buried but there wasn’t time for it now.

“Oh please, Castiel. We both know you can’t get it up so stop with the posturing.”

Zachariah was sauntering towards them, probably using his mojo to keep those black polished shoes dickheads always wore from getting all grimy in this god forsaken lot. He wondered if anybody could even see them. Cars kept passing and nobody noticed them, what was happening just feet from the road.

The angel crouched down in front of them, grabbing him by the collar. He choked, air suddenly greatly limited as he was dragged upright, body numb and still trying to gather up a response from the impact alone.

“I’m going to enjoy tearing him out from your soul,” Zachariah snarled, something hungry and a brief hysterical thought in him that he was planning to just eat Cas. “Rip him out of your insides if I have to.”

Cold metal was in his hand and he didn’t question, didn’t hesitate as he moved his arm, bringing it up in a stroke so fluid that the poor bastard just stared, blade through his throat.

“Not today,” Dean rasped, ripping it back out.

The mouth opened, streaming with light that was starting to consume his eyes and Dean backed up, feeling Cas hold up his broken bones.

The angel in him was flowing through him, growing and huge and the feeling of something behind them opening wide and expansive.

“Cas –“ he got out before the world was spinning.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

 

Once again in that field and he was grateful that at least he knew what was going on with this part of his life as he got the car door open. Even in his dreams, the weary ache followed him and he stretched his muscles. Cas was in the same spot, leaning against the passenger door on his side as if he had never moved from the first time.

Though there was something different. Hair all dark and looking like he had just woken up, tie half askew, coat around his knees but there was a pallor there. Something worn out and draining faster than it let on and Dean swallowed.

“So,” he tried, the angel staring off into the sky and he wondered where the hell they actually were.

“On earth, we are unconscious a few miles from where I believe Sam will be going. We were found through your car,” Cas supplied, a strange note of apology weaving in against the words.

“Still creepy. And nothing coming for us?”

“Not at this time. I am healing our wounds, which will take a while longer. As I must work now to keep us hidden at the same time.”

“What, no instant angel mojo?”

“You are my vessel, so I am able to repair you well enough. I am cut off from heaven.”

The way he said it, as though he was announcing that he had decided to change cable companies made a little more of him feel like it was dying. “Cas, man –“

“Michael has been calling. Zachariah was not lying about that. He has offered me forgiveness. If I bring you to the angels he will allow me to come home.”

Dean rocked back against the car, feeling her smooth curves and high polished sheen through his shirt and knew that had to be a good deal. Going from just barely this side of living to the hero of heaven, well that was probably the best most of them could hope for. Cas was still staring up into the sky, that deep blue a radiant hue that seemed to be midnight and midday at once and his mind was definitely fried.

“You didn’t say ‘hell yeah’ to something like that?”

“You did not turn me in to go to Sam?”

Dean let his body slouch a bit, head falling back against Baby’s roof. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“If it goes as they desire, then he will kill Lilith and break the last seal. I believe, as you are to be Michael’s vessel on earth that your brother will become Lucifer’s.”

“We got to –“ Dean was trying, pushing himself away from the car when the angel was just in front of him, shoving him back just by his zero concept of personal space alone. Those eyes, well they had that special tint that was pure not human.

“Calm. Do not wake yourself. It will take longer and you cannot save Sam with a broken hip and other injuries nor am I strong enough to fully take over without hurting you further.”

“Yeah, sure, okay,” he mumbled, wanting to protest that the last part didn’t matter. He broke the first seal and put this whole damn thing into motion so it was what he deserved.

That too damn tired to even be alive feeling was all through him and he got himself on the ground, the angel stepping to the side as he stretched out his legs. Patience wasn’t his thing. Going in guns blazing and hoping for a plan to present itself was.

Castiel was beside him, sitting and tired as they looked at his trippy flower filled dream space before the angel waved a hand. A cooler of beer between them and it was probably easy to bam things into existence when it wasn’t a real place to begin with. He had to laugh, the two of them all tucked up nice and neat in his broken head.

“I apologize if it is not quite right. I do not taste as you do.”

“No worries, man,” he said, cracking one open and it was –

It was good. Probably the best he had had in a long time. Though he doubted he could get drunk in his dream land of endless opportunity that was running on angel fuel but it was comforting. Some strange sort of familiarity to hold onto while the torn angel stitched them together so they could hobble off to drag his moronic, slightly evil brother home.

“Hey man, it’s rude to make someone drink alone.”

Cas stared at him, looking perplexed as though he done some unspeakable social screw up and he rolled his eyes. He was about to just plant a beer in the angel’s hands when Cas reached over and got one. He was so damn careful, hands opening it like it was the most fragile thing in the world and Dean had to laugh again.

“It’s not a newborn, Cas. You just open and chug.” The angel nodded, and followed instructions which made him smile. “So what do you mean you don’t taste like us?”

“When I am fully in a vessel I taste the components. I believe it would be accurate to say I taste the individual molecules instead of the whole.”

Dean whistled, because that was terrible. “That, that just sucks. Sorry.”

“I did not realize that it did until now.”

Cas was back staring up at the sky and he wondered what the angel was seeing up there. Some hidden galaxy for angelic eyes only? Maybe the mothership coming to beam them home because he would not be surprised if that happened at this point. Really and truly, aliens with sixteen eyes and purple toes greeting them and he would not bat a damn eye.

“Until now?” he prodded because he wanted something to talk about that wasn’t the gigantic mess waiting for them.

“I find I taste differently, most likely due to you being control and my current condition.”

He made himself not ask what that condition was because that wasn’t fixable right now.

“So, like human then?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell you what, Cas,” he said, draining the first bottle. Nope no alcoholic effect but it didn’t matter. It was still good even without the booze haze. “If we make it through the next little bit, we’ll get a good burger, fries and some pie. Get you a proper education on good things to eat.”

“I would like that.”

Dean glanced over, the angel staring at him with a wilting intensity, like he had offered his most prized possession and not just to eat some stuff so he could see what it was like. So he shrugged because he didn’t know what else to do and answered, “Sure thing, Cas. Don’t mention it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Everything was sore as he woke up, sky a dusty grey color warning of twilight as his head pounded. A shrill ringing was sounding from his pocket as he dug out the phone. Somehow they had managed to take that with them and feeling a weight on his back, his gun too.

Cas, even on the run, did not leave valuable things behind and Dean appreciated it.

“Bobby?”

“Son, you want to tell me where the hell you’ve been and what you’ve done?”

“Unconscious and what do you mean ‘what I’ve done’?”

He got himself up to his knees and while all creaking and complaining his bones and vitals seemed to be in place as he stumbled to his feet. Cas was still that little flame back there, like he could look into his skull that’s what he would see but it was faded.

“I’ve got company,” Bobby said, voice flat and everything in him just stopped. He squeezed his eyes closed because, no, no this couldn’t be happening.

“Tell me it’s a lost Mary Kay lady you’re romancing Bobby, cause I got to have something better than what that means.”

“Bunch of mooks in suits, claiming to be angels with all the appropriate glowy bits. Want to know where you are.”

“Can’t say then.”

Getting one foot in front of the other, feeling a small prod from Cas about which direction they should go and he started walking towards where Sam hopefully was. It was wet but not terrible, a slight moistness to his clothes but his boots didn’t squelch as he made his way across the grass.

“They want a deal, Dean.”

“And they want Satan to wear Sammy.”

A long silence as he kept going, he had to keep on because they were the only line left out here before both heaven and hell got its way. Enough had died so far, so much innocent blood and there wasn’t really a good deal he could do. Cas was so weak, he knew it and Bobby, it was collateral was what it was and he pushed it all in. Pushed it back and deep and locked it up tight because right now he was the only one that maybe Sam might listen too. That maybe some part of being brothers might turn a head before he had to just shoot him and he didn’t even think that would work even if he could bear to pull the trigger.

“You take care of yourself, son. This ain’t your fault.”

“Bobby –“

“Go to hell, you bastards,” he heard the old man say as the line went dead.

“Bobby! Bobby, come on!”

Impulse beyond rational thought drove him into the motions of redialing but there was nothing, not even endless ringing or static. He threw the phone across the field, not caring. Something wet and savage tore out of his throat as he managed not to curse at heaven, to tell them to shove this whole shit show up their lily white asses because he didn’t want to be found that way. Didn’t want to be carted off within grasp of at least seeing Sam one last time even if his brother did straight up murder him this go around.

_‘Dean.’_

He had to focus, had to get air in and he became aware that he was almost ripping out his own hair. Hands dropping, trying to swallow back some kind of inconsolable wave he was feeling all too frequently and he breathed, lungs burning.

“We find Sam, gank the skank and figure out how the hell we avoid the apocalypse after that.”

His voice sounded far more sure than he did as they began the walk again towards where Sam was apparently destined to be.

 

* * *

 

 

He really questioned Cas’ definition of being close as it felt like they had been walking fifty damn miles in the middle of nowhere before they even got a hint that another human even lived out here. Not that he felt a whole hell of a lot of time had passed. More shock and pain and just down right dirty grief as they trekked.

Couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t change that.

“So how do we know this the right city?”

_'When Robert Singer told us Maryland, I realized where they would want Sam. There was a great atrocity here that heaven witnessed at a convent not long before your birth.'_

“Poor nuns. Everybody always wants to gank the nuns.” And he did feel a bit sad over that because what the hell did they do to anyone except be a little liberal about waving rulers around terrified children? “Okay, so that’s where you’re having us go.”

_‘Yes. To fly all the way there would be to reveal ourselves even further, especially in my weakened stated.’_

Which was the last thing they needed, even if it sucked trudging along a gravel shoulder. “Cas –“

He stopped because he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer even if the angel knew they question already. That little flame in there was failing, he knew it. One more causality on the side of the road, one more thing he killed because he couldn’t hold his shit together.

_‘I do not regret being here, only that it took me so long to do so.’_

He swallowed, not wanting to answer and tried to take in as much scenery as the deepening gloom of dusk allowed. At least the ass end of nowhere was scenic, green foliage and trees plumped, out rustling in a sleepy way around and above them. The air rich in spring that was sliding away into summer and he tried to take it all in. Even those repetitive birds that only seemed to know one three note song.

The sounds of his boots on the loose stones and very little else was starting to grate against his already frayed nerves.

“If Lucifer gets out –“

_‘All of this will be gone. They will fight and Lucifer will die and Michael will raise paradise.’_

“Why am I thinking paradise isn’t all that?”

_‘I admit I do not know, but seeing heaven’s standing views on humans I doubt any will fare well under their leadership.’_

“Two sides of the same coin,” he said, fumbling through his jacket pockets. Fingers finally finding the cold metal he was looking for and he pulled out the small light. The road out here didn’t have much for lighting and he didn’t need to be stumbling around in the dark with everything in creation hunting them.

Though Cas could probably see in the dark.

_‘Yes.’_

“Don’t suppose you could just not do that?”

_‘I apologize, we are simply sharing space. You have felt me as well.’_

Dean went back to trying to concentrate on seeing where he was going because he didn’t want to dwell on that. Nope, not going to concentrate on that weirdness at all as he rubbed the little flashlight between his palms. Bobby had gotten them several one Christmas, in case they got trapped somewhere without one of the big lights.

Another curl of something dark and bitter and he felt the angel, even faded, glow warmer for a moment.

“Well, can’t say I’m a big fan of anything right now.”

There wasn’t an answer and they were coming up to something. He squinted, it looked like some kind of parking lot and he felt a shift in Cas in there. Still not used to that and was never going to be.

_‘Demon.’_

He crouched low, keeping by the trees that stood before a small break that stretched to grass before what he thought was a gravel lot. The deepening shadows as night was fully taking over helping his cause as they scuttled along the edge. He was trying to see, some weird hope sparking that this was what they were looking for. A looming figure, one over fed somehow on Lucky Charms and Mac and Cheese most likely, was pacing. The other was smaller, most likely a woman he thought due to long hair blowing around her.

“Can you tell?”

_‘I cannot see properly, they have something that blocks my sight and I am not fully myself.’_

Good enough for him, reaching around and checking his weapon to see that it was loaded and ready. Dean knew he was showing teeth as they walked into the open, moving nonchalantly towards the pair as he held in his uneasiness about being so revealed. The pair stopped, turning towards him.

Coming closer he could see that gawky, way too long for a dude hair and yep, it had to be Sam.

“Dean?” his brother got out, taking a step then stopping. A lost, almost broken look was still in that face even in the rapidly fading light and Dean was ready to commence with the stabbing demons part of this operation.

Ruby, to the bitch’s credit, had looked at him, really looked and taken a few steps back. “Sam, that’s not –“

“No, it’s me,” he cut in. “Just got an extra passenger for right now.”

“I don’t – I don’t understand. You aren’t possessed.”

It was painful, is what it was. His baby brother all hopped up and like he was lost in some dream that he couldn’t figure out the keys for.

Dean shrugged, liking the scared rabbit look Ruby was wearing at the moment as Cas spread himself out a bit more. This time he didn’t complain but he wanted the kill. Wanted to feel the knife pierce that rotten hunk of meat she called a heart.

 _‘I am not a demon,’_ and Dean snorted at that tone.

“I think Cas takes offense that you automatically thought demon,” he said easily, getting himself between Sam and the demon in case she tried to grab and run. The angel was watching through his eyes fully now; a weird feeling, like someone peering over your shoulder but impossibly closer and he tried not to blink too much.

Like it would screw with their vision or something.

“Cas? Castiel?”

“He’s here. Sam, I’m still pissed and there’s a lot of shit between us but I need you to listen. Right now, all that matters is that Lilith is the seal. You kill her and Lucifer is out.”

Sam backed up hard enough that he ran into the ungodly orange car behind him with an audible thwack. Those big eyes staring at him, confused, as something in the trunk started moving again. The sound of kicking against metal and he looked at his brother trying to hold onto the few fragments of hope he still had. Trying to believe that this was still Sammy.

“It could be a lie, it could still –“

“Damn it, Sam. You know somewhere that this is wrong. Whatever you are planning to do with lunch in the trunk is wrong. That this whole thing stinks.” He paused, dragging his anger back into check because this shouldn’t be in question. They were about hunting people and saving things, not whatever this was. “I know you know it. We need to figure out what the hell is up before it gets worse because I’m sure it’s going to.”

Those eyes, round and he remember the little boy staring at him, the one who had learned of monsters that were hungry for humans. The one that learned there were things that lived in the dark and went bump in the night and he would do anything, absolutely anything to let Sam have a world where he grew up out of this. To not be poisoned, to be thought of as a freak with dad thinking he was going to end the world.

There wasn’t hate there anymore, but he didn’t doubt that demon blood wasn’t still knocking around inside him. Probably had been guzzling his free supply from that thing that he had laid with and they hadn’t gotten him clean from the first time.

What the hell they were going to do after these next few minutes he didn’t know but he had to reach his brother who was drowning right in front of him.

“We’re family, Sam. Aint nothing is ever going to change that.”

“Sam –“ Ruby was saying and to Dean’s utter and sheer delight he saw his brother’s head whip over, hair still moving as he held up his hand, stopping her without effort.

Something about the dog turning to bite its master and he smiled.

“Is it true? Lilith is the seal?”

“Sam, I haven’t lied to you. I want that bitch dead –“

A scream railed out of that body as Sam twisted his hand, watching Ruby drop to her knees, arms taunt with tendons hard beneath the skin.

“Answer me, yes or no.”

“Sam –“

Her head snapped back as she screamed again and Dean looked down at her, disgusted she had touched anything on earth, let alone his brother. Short breaths punched out of her, chest heaving and her face distorted into something even uglier than normal as her eyes saturated black.

“Thinking you should answer him,” he said slowly, watching her. “Make it easier on yourself because one way or another, you die here.”

Her only response was to laugh.

Whatever had been holding his brother back snapped, that hard line of muscle in his neck, teeth bared and he closed his fist as a wail tore through her, watching her flash out and collapse at their feet. Sam was still breathing hard, hand falling back to his side as he looked over.

Pounding from the trunk was sounding again, frantic and terrified and Sam was already on it, popping it open.

“Sammy, tell me this isn’t what it looks like,” he whispered. The woman in hospital scrubs, looking horrified, a devils trap painted on the trunk lid. Midnight snack and he almost retched. “Please, Sam.”

“There’s a demon in her, one that feeds Lilith and…” his brother’s voice trailed off staring down, forgetting everything around him. A subtle shift in the woman’s eyes, something rolling in and he stiffened as Cas was suddenly laser focused again.

Without thought, his hand was on her throat to restrain her, Cas in there helping with what little was left of him. The vibration of her laugh ran up his arm, a lazy smirk playing itself across her face.

“One little fallen angel, one broken brother, and one pathetic stopper of demons. What a show, bravo.”

“Don’t,” he growled out, hoping Sam was finding his way back to what was happening in the here and now and in a good way.

“What, the truth stings? Poor little Dean, bet it hurts more than those souls you carved up down –“ she choked and it was Sam standing there, looking pissed with his hand out, eyes wild and animal like.

“Sam,” he tried, not getting much of a response. “Sam, look at me.”

Slowly, that head turned, a slight trail of blood from his nose as nostrils flared. Eyes reflecting that same hate he had seen before and he repressed a shudder.

“Man, they haven’t won. We’re still here and Lucifer is all boxed up nice and neat in hell.”

That jaw relaxed, the line of tension ebbing just a little bit as the focus snapped back to the poor woman and that thing nesting in her. “I can kill without harm. So she can’t alert anyone.”

“Don’t – you don’t –“

That was all she got out as he watched Sam turn his hand, stream of blood from his nose wider now as she screamed, eyes rolling back as that body shuddered before going lax in unconsciousness. Absently, one of his brother’s giant mitts wiped at the blood on his face, looking tired and even more lost.

_‘The demon is gone. We should go before we are found. Heaven will soon be coming once they realize what has happen, along with hell.’_

“Yeah, probably a good game plan,” he agreed, Sam looking at him like he was seeing him for the first time. “Check her, I’ll find something else to take.”

For once there were no arguments as his brother set to work on freeing her from the bonds. A couple of cars sat out here for something. He wasn’t sure what was nearby to even warrant anyone and he didn’t want to stick around to explain the body on the gravel or the woman in a trunk. There was an old pickup truck, door unlocked. Sadly no keys, but it was old school and an easy start. Engine came right up, thrumming as he got back out to see Sam dragging himself over.

“Dean, I –“

Without hesitation he decked his brother, watching him sprawl out on the ground.

“Still really pissed, Sam. Get in the damn truck. We got to move.”

Picking himself up, Sam did as asked, slouching as far over on his side as he could as Dean backed out, the only idea he had was to get them as far from here as possible.

 

* * *

 

 

“Dean –“

“Shut it, Sam.”

Sam made that practiced sound that seemed to be native to younger siblings, that put upon ‘nobody knows the trouble I’ve carried’ noise. He wasn’t falling for that one, not with all the things that laid between them festering, some of them rotting. Not that he wouldn’t want to turn back the clock, he’d do it in a blink without thought but that ship had long sailed.

Where they were going he had no clue outside of getting the hell away from where they had been. From where he presumed Lilith was waiting around wearing whichever poor soul she had claimed as her own to carve, wondering why no one was coming to her little dinner party. Sam was all twitchy up against the door, probably a part of him still wanting to attend and he didn’t dare stop. Couldn’t stop because he feared Sam would go barreling off into the darkness into parts unknown and they didn’t need that. Last thing they needed was to split up because he was sure heaven and hell would be hunting their asses. Sam was about to slid more down that hole when what was in him burned all the way out and he had zero plans on how to fix anything.

At least it was just the headlights bouncing on the road and the pale green ancient dials in the gloom that surrounded them. The way it damn well should be.

 _‘I will try to refrain from dying in your car in the future,’_ and damn if he didn’t think the angel was laughing in there.

He needed to relax a little otherwise he’d be all twisted into knots from driving slouched over and rigid. It would help if this thing picked up more than AM. Blather about some power outage on the eastern seaboard that had rustled peoples’ jimmies and after ten minutes he had snapped it off. Didn’t affect them, they had enough without worrying about something that didn’t even affect them. Except maybe the darkness of the night as he swore they had driven past a couple of spots on the side of this road, some businesses lost in inky fingers as midnight edged closer.

“Why is he in you?” Sam tried, seeing as they were not touching that whole pile of other crap that seemed as if it had taken up residence as a third person between them.

“He was dying, ya know, that angel glowing thingy they do.”

“And being in you saved him?”

It wasn’t mocking or disbelief, just curiosity, like Dean was a whole lot more screwed up and interesting than anyone had thought and he shrugged. Not like he had a good answer because there hadn’t been time to get one so far. Sam twitching, knee moving faster spelled out that time was still unraveling for them.

“Apparently.”

Everything was way to quiet, just air moving past as the truck rattled and shuddered at seventy and he didn’t dare push it faster. Some cartoon image of all the sides falling off as he and Sam came to a stop just on the frame kept his foot from opening the engine full out. A sharp pang for Baby sitting alone in that trash heap of a station next to a dead angel. There were probably cops all around her now. Somebody had to have found dear old departed Zach with his wings all burned into concrete and used condoms.

Soon they’d look over Baby, find all that blood in the back, all her hidden resources and unless they were Barney they’d know she was involved in what went down. He hit his hand against the steering wheel, pain a welcome intrusion across his palm as he swore under his breath.

“Where are we going?”

He didn’t have to look over to know his brother was eyeing him like a ticking bomb, which they both were. Probably not the best situation to be in as Sam kept those thoughts wisely inside his trap.

“Dunno.”

“Bobby’s?”

“Bobby is, well he’s –“ he couldn’t push out the correct word as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Sam got it anyways as a small sound escaped him. “Oh, God.”

“Yeah, so that’s out.”

“Demons?” that slight edge there, Sam blaming himself and that part, well that one wasn’t his fault.

“Worse. Angels.”

He grimaced as he felt Cas shuffle around in there, some ill content feeling and he couldn’t tell if it was from the angel being upset over his family’s behavior or upset just in general. For a moment he was close to thumping his chest to tell the angel to knock it the hell off before he caught himself. He was already visiting crazy town, didn’t need to buy property and settle down there, too.

“I don’t understand. Why would they kill him?”

“To get to me,” and Sam’s gaze was bright on him, eyes searching all over again that something else was wrong outside of all the obvious things in their laps. “Apparently I’m set to be some superstar, top billing in their new hit show called the Apocalypse.”

The bitterness was sharp against him, something unbidden and open as Cas curled up inside him. It was like hauling around some large cat that rolled around and insisted on laying on all the areas he didn’t like.

“Any idea where we could go here, Cas, because we don’t have a lot of time and I’m fresh out of ideas.”

_‘I can fly all of us soon enough and maybe keep us away from heaven’s sight. Perhaps we can then find a place to restrain him fully.’_

“Great, so maybe get on that then.” Even in the dark he knew Sam was raising an eyebrow at them. He cleared his throat, not looking over. “He says flying will be a thing shortly and we’ll get you somewhere then.”

He didn’t add ‘to scream that vile crap out’ and he didn’t know if he could listen to what happened to Sam all over again. Didn’t even know if they would have a way to restrain him, especially with Cas a whole of a lot weaker than he let on.

“Dean, I’m –“

“Don’t, Sam, just don’t.” He knew Sam was sliding closer to that door now, trying to shove his giant frame up against the handle and those fears of stopping bloomed up greater. That Sam really would run off and even if he couldn’t be around him anymore, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let his brother go suffer alone like he was. “All I got is a lot of things spouting a lot of words right now with promises and wishful thinking. Don’t tell me, just do it. Got it?”

“Yeah, aye aye, captain.”

Dean chose the ignore the harshness probe under those words, the tone trying to start a fight.

Silence all over again, Cas that thin little flame all tucked up in there that itched and made him weirdly unsettled but safe at the same time. Sam smashed up still on his side, slightly relaxed but still giving them glances like they were just going to reach over and smite him from existence. Like that was a thing he could do and he’d kick Cas out to die before that happened.

At least nothing had jumped them yet. He also really needed to stop having those kind of hopeful thoughts as all they did was get him in trouble as the engine sputtered and died.

Rolling along and there was something in the road, a shadow that the failing headlights barely picked up on from here. Cas was suddenly more fully up in his shit, focused and – and afraid. Downright terrified and a cold sweat broke out across his skin because that was wrong. Cas was a lot of things, some of them not particularly pleasant, but even with Zachariah the angel hadn’t been this afraid.

Sam was shifting, losing for a moment the whole chasm of space they had laid out, trying to see out. The shadow was a man, his hand raised up and at first he thought demon. It was like when Ruby had stopped Baby before and he was terrified that Lilith had found them. Even if this was a dude from what he could see, Sam getting a more panicked look.

“What the –“

_‘Raphael. Raphael. Raphael.’_

That one name that was thrumming through all parts of him, angel inside thrashing, trying to spread wings and get them out but no go. All major muscles of his body seemed to be on lockdown, unwilling to respond as if held down by a thousand unseen hands. Nothing was working, he couldn’t get anything to listen as that head was raised to look at them in the cab.

A spark, something blindingly blue in the night and then he could see wings. Not the shadow kind but ones that coursed with pure electricity as the man took a step forward.

“Christ,” Sam got out, his overgrown body trembling with effort but he seemed to be in the same boat with them. “Oh, fuck.”

Dean swallowed because it was the end of the line. They could barely make it out of the damn state before they were found and it was just like they had postponed the inevitable. Like nothing mattered, nothing they did stopped the turning of the screw. Satan was still going to tap dance on humanity and the world was going to burn.

Cas felt like a wounded bird in there, trying to get free and he wanted to tell him to knock it off.

_‘Let me go. Let me do something to buy you time.’_

“Yeah no, not against that thing.” He could feel Sam’s question burning in the air even if they couldn’t really turn to see each other and he swallowed. “Raphael, Sammy.”

“The archangel? Like the one that came for the prophet, that big, screaming ball of light?”

“Yeah.”

Those wings were dissipating now, leaving little flashed in his vision from the encroaching darkness but he didn’t miss that wide smile. Something so downright empty that it was like a black hole opening up on the road before them.

He opened his mouth to tell Sam to run, to do anything in his power to get the hell out because it was the only thing he had when there was a sound. Something close to a hurricane and he felt it slam into his body full force, everything shuddering against a power he couldn’t see and he swore as he lost consciousness all over again.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

 

 

That same damn field and Dean was on his feet, close to teetering right the hell back down as Cas looked at him. There was something startled there in those old eyes and Dean thought the angel should be aged way past something actually surprising him.

“What the hell was that?”

“I do not know. I cannot get a bearing on where we are or what has happened.”

“Does heaven –“

“No. I would think that I would not be still in existence if that was where we were. My brothers would take pleasure in my death.”

Okay, he had to calm down because blind fear is what got people dead. If Cas didn’t know where they were then he probably didn’t know if Sam was around, or alive, or not evil. That part of it wasn’t fixable right this moment and he apparently couldn’t just wake his ass up either. So, put to sleep or coma.

Great. Awesome. He always liked having options.

“Dean.”

“Don’t,” he muttered, sitting on Baby’s hood, staring off into the distance. It was vibrant, like everything was several shades brighter than their living counterparts. If they had one to begin with and some of those plants, well he wasn’t all too sure about that. Things moved, flowers bent as if there was a breeze yet none stirred as he looked at Cas. “Why can’t you just leave?”

Some little part of him kicked himself for asking it that way when he saw a slight twitch by Cas’ right eye.

“Not, no. Okay. Let’s back up. Why do you need me to let you leave?”

“The last time I attempted to tell you anything of your soul you woke up.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be a bad thing as at least we’d know where the hell we landed,” he offered and got something he thought was a shadow of a smile. “Cas, man, you got to help me out because there feels like there is a lot you left out here.”

Cas moved closer, his coat swaying in the non-breeze air and so goddamn intense it hurt. “Will you listen this time?”

“Got nothing but time, it seems.”

A head tilt, some sort of half nod as if having a literal captive audience was pleasing before the angel came over, close but not touching. “I was sent with several garrisons into hell to retrieve you. I did not know why at the time. Only that a righteous man was in the pit and was to be saved.”

The question of why a righteous man ended up down there to begin with died on his lips as he saw that answering glower. Dean waved a hand for him to continue.

“I was the one that found you and you were radiant –“

“Cas –“

“Dean, you said you would let me speak,” and damn if he didn’t sound a little petulant.

He cleared his throat, attempting to hide a smile despite how uncomfortable he was. “Go on.”

“You, of course, in your stubborn way, refused me because you had broken.” Cas’ voice was soft and Dean couldn’t look over because it sounded almost fond. Like the little ape had done an adorable trick and he put his gaze on the grass half flattened under his boots. “You tried to attack me, to drive me away as you felt that due to what hell had done to you it was not right to bring you back. I had my orders, so I took you.”

“So, just an order thing. Save the fool that got himself sent down there to break a seal he knew jack about.”

“No.”

There was a hand on his arm, Cas so much closer now and it took a moment to realize just what that hand was actually over. That burned print on him, searing into his flesh like he was a piece of property and something like sorrow flashed through him.

“You have this because I refused to let you hurt. You fought me the whole way as I forced us up from the very lower circles, past all the souls of the damned and you wept. You begged for their freedom instead. I held you closer than I should have.”

Something thick was in his throat and he shook his head, swallowing it back down, hands in fists pressed against his thighs. His jeans felt too smooth, too not rough against his knuckles. “Is that why you thought I could hear you when I popped up? Instead of just a lot of squealing and breaking glass?”

“Yes.”

He chanced a glance, a soft almost rueful look that Dean happened to like on the angel. Though it may be the showing of any expression at all outside of constipation or blank that he liked.

“You, you threatened to toss me back down.”

That look was gone in a blink as the hand dropped from his arm, Cas looking out across the field instead. “I should not have. I not only didn’t have the permission to do so but I would never have. I was angry, upset over the deaths of my brothers as I did not know of Uriel’s crimes against the host. For the first time in my existence I understood doubt, why Michael purged it from us as it terrified me.”

Dean worried his lip, fingers playing with his shirt hem now, wanting to reflect on it probably being filthy instead of focusing on this. He didn’t have a damn thing that would offer comfort. Stupid actions, stupid choices that had helped the whole end game plan along and gotten them to this point of near destruction, world hovering and not understanding how close the fire was.

“I do not know if you will forgive me, but there is something else you should know. I feel it wrong to keep silent since you have risked much to save my life for however long I have it.”

“Well, spit it out, Cas. Can’t get much worse.”

The angel stepped away from him and that was laying all the tracks for this being bad right from that little move. Spelled all kinds of terrible news a-comin’ and he held back what did you do, stopping that damning question from tumbling out.

“Michael himself ordered me to release Sam from that room.”

“Goddamn it,” he pushed out, shoving himself off the car, feeling rage burst all through him. He kicked a tire and it wasn’t close to enough. All he wanted to do was break something. Over and over again because they had been so close and then this.

It was everything to not just start wailing on Cas standing there, not looking at him, hands dangling at his sides as if he too was wondering when that moment came.

“Why?”

“I had my orders –“ but Dean cut him off with a hand wave, the angel barely turned in his direction. “I thought it wise to follow the plan of heaven, to bring paradise. You are so full of pain, of self-doubt and suffering and I –“

“What? Trusted your brothers not to screw us over? Thought it best if you just ripped choice away from everyone.”

“Sam chose to leave.”

“Oh, yeah, there’s the poster child for why this was the best idea ever,” and he laughed, something heaving in him that was closer to despair. “He’s a junkie, addled and hopped up and used by pretty much everything. You do not get to use him as your truth card.”

“Dean, you must understand that when I returned from heaven I thought it was your destiny, your –“

“Christ,” he said, pushing his hands into his hair, leaning his head back to stare at the sky. “They really had you all mucked up in their destiny shit, didn’t they?”

“You would have been at peace.”

“You can take your peace and shove it up your lily-white ass. I’ll take the pain and the guilt. Hell, I’ll even take Sam as is. It’s a whole hell of a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise.” He paused, trying to catch breath he shouldn’t actually need here, not wanting to look back. Baby gleamed here still, though the light source wasn’t all that evident because his little dreamscape seemed to be lacking a sun. “You know what’s real. People, families – that’s all real. And you were ready to let them all burn for some ideal that you knew didn’t include humans. Not in the end.”

“I understand better now.”

Dean licked his lips, not liking how soft that tone was. He was carrying around an angel that had been about to screw them over in all ways. And yet, yet he still didn’t regret saying yes, to being here now because maybe, some tiny little fraction of a hope that they could survive somehow. Sam may have been turning himself into a monster but he came back. He came back and they were probably alive and that had to be enough for right now.

“They made you be the one to open the door to make sure you wouldn’t do what you did,” he said, voice quiet, more quiet than what he felt inside which was a pure storm longing to get out and burn heaven down. To set every angel he saw after this on fire. “To make sure you crossed a line so if that pesky doubt thing came back you couldn’t ask me for help.”

Bastards. Every last one of them. He chanced a look over and saw the angel had his back to him now, not wanting to see and yeah he was pissed. Pissed that Cas had done this, that he hadn’t found the balls to stand up before Sam started wandering the countryside. Pissed that Sam had let himself be fueled by something so damned. Pissed that heaven was just as bad as hell and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the curve of Baby’s roof.

“That doesn’t answer the whole soul thing, by the way.”

Minutes dragged themselves past and he wondered if he would get an answer, Cas still not turning.

“Your soul is strong, whether you chose to believe it or not. It is destined to be near an archangel and I knew it would help keep me alive, at least for a while longer.” That voice was still low, so low in fact he could barely decipher the sounds into words. He scoffed, closing his eyes. “But you hold on. So tightly and refuse to let me go. You did it in hell when I had you, when I was trying to place you into your body and even now, I still feel how tight you hold on and I –“

The angel cut himself off, swaying slightly and Dean turned, pushing his back against the door. Not wanting to keep watching the angel, leaning his head back to feel the smooth curves under his skull.

“I will keep my promise. When it is safe to leave you, no matter my state, I will at your command.”

“Cas –“

“Rest.”

And that was all there was to that, the tone spelled out that finality to their conversation. He let his eyes close, trying not to think of Bobby, of what had happened to him. Of what he could possibly be waking up to.

 

* * *

 

 

Well, this hadn’t been what he was expecting. Not in the slightest though he wasn’t really sure what he had wanted outside of not being in a torture dungeon. Instead it seemed like his expectations were met then shattered as he pushed himself up off a couch, the blanket that had been over him sliding off into a little puddle on the floor.

Rubbing his eyes, he blinked, Cas staring out too and feeling somewhat interested. They appeared, for all intents and purposes to be in some kind of house or apartment or something along those lines. Everything was far more upscale then what he was used to though, even the cushions he was on were plush, soft against his palms. Simple but pricey, the furniture a sleek black, white walls with a strange bright red trim. TV, kitchen just visible around the corner and his stomach rumbled. A weird twisting sensation and he got himself to not ask if Cas had been keeping him from hunger before.

However, there was no Sam and he got himself to his feet.

“So, this is?”

_‘Not on earth. A construct.’_

“Well, great. Answers my questions,” he said, getting himself in motion as he walked to the kitchen hoping to see Sam doing Sam things. At the very least, not a giant mound of hallucinating yeti which he feared.

Instead he got nothing. Small noises as the fridge clicked but that was it. Everything else was silent as they stood there. Table, chairs, large stainless steel appliances and fruit on the counter which he raised an eyebrow at because Sam would definitely be grazing from that.

_‘It is created. By something powerful.’_

“Awesome. Didn’t know we had powerful friends or I would have been hitting them up a whole lot sooner.”

“You don’t. Simply that you two muttonheads just won’t stop wrecking things,” came a familiar voice and he turned slowly.

“Trickster.”

That smug look grew, that thing the same as when they had last seen him. Still short with the same long hair fetish Sam seemed to have and even the green coat and jeans seemed to be the same as the being leaned a shoulder up against the wall.

Before he could get any kind of smart remark out he felt Cas surge forward without warning, pushing him away in his body. He protested, already knowing it was a lost cause and that this wouldn’t be a thing if they weren’t in danger. There was a distant awareness of his limbs which was screwed up in a million and one ways just by itself, the feeling of something in his hand and he knew it was a sword.

“Gabriel.”

_‘Woah, wait. Gabriel? As in Gabriel the angel who flitted around delivering the news to Mary? That Gabriel?’_

“Long time, no see, little bro. Can’t say I was anxious for a reunion.”

That did absolutely zilch to calm Cas as he felt everything in him go rigid. “You dare speak as though it was not you who abandoned us all.”

“Cassie, now is not the time to get into bygones,” the trickster, or rather Gabriel, airily waved at them. “We’ve got a lot more up in our grill right now.”

Cas was not deterred and held out his blade in front of him. Dean wasn’t opposed to the stabbing portion of this, he was pretty sure Gabriel deserved it from a lot of beings at this point. Rather it was the way those eyes narrowed, something hostile underneath.

“What are you planning? Want to give me a few new holes because you know that won’t kill me.”

“Perhaps, but I will feel better.”

“Terrible justification, Cassie. Been getting advice from Deano all wedged in there?”

_‘Cas, what the hell is going on? Why was he pagan?’_

“Gabriel has been missing from the host for a long time. We thought him dead. We mourned him.” Those last words dragged out, something in the smarmy bastard in front of them finally looking like he wasn’t just the biggest douche in the world. “Apparently, he simply prefers his tricks to his family.”

Damn. Well then, he could work with this a bit because Cas on a blood lust rage made a whole hell of a lot more sense now.

_‘So, no to trusting the jerk. Where is Sam?’_

“Paul Bunyan is currently resting,” Gabriel said, eyes shifting and Dean wanted to fold up, hating that he could be heard. That and he simply hated angels at this point so, so much. “Glad to see you too.”

“We did not ask for your help,” Cas intoned, blade still out but that only got them an eye roll.

“And what was your grand plan back there, Cassie? Flying out and being exploded like a gnat on a windshield cause that’s all you had in your future and you know it. So many pieces on that road even if you aren’t all barely together to begin with. I’m impressed you can even take control with how much you’ve oozed out.”

_‘Cas?’_

There was a slight trembling and he couldn’t tell what the angel was feeling outside of it being a large mix of grief and rage.

“Cassie,” and Gabriel lost his smirk for once, walking forward like they weren’t holding out a weapon that at least could cause pain. And Dean was ready to cause pain because this thing had tortured Sam, probably knew the whole scheme of heaven’s big showdown scheduled in the next few hours.

A string of words, shit he didn’t understand because it was that weird language that sounded like someone took sandpaper to each word as it was pushed out. His, well currently their hand, dropped back to their side and he wanted to scream. To tell Cas that he had better put that sword back up because they had zero allies and at this late hour he wasn’t expecting a miracle. Especially since those that seemed responsible for things like that were more amoral and violent than most monsters.

Gabriel’s eyes took on a sharp glint, something he couldn’t read.

“You better start trusting because I’m all that’s between you and everything out there.”

_‘Maybe not putting Sam in his own personal hell would of helped you out there.’_

A shrug, like it wasn’t no thing before Gabriel was touching their face which he had major issues with. It was still his face, still belonged to his body no matter who was all up in him, thank you very much. He fought, but he felt pushed back more and he knew it wasn’t Cas this time. Followed by more of that language that had a softer edge to it, made it almost sound like a human should be able to speak it.

“What was your plan after you got them?” Gabriel was asking. “You know Michael will never quit. No one says no to him, no one.”

_‘Hasn’t met me yet.’_

To his surprise he got a sharp bark of laughter as Gabriel stepped back, letting his hand drop with pure amusement on his face. “That’s true. You got heaven all in a tizzy up there, Winchester. Michael is squawking and shit has hit the fan in ways you cannot believe.”

_‘So no answer on the Pagan thing then?’_

“Come on. I’ll let you see your brother so your extremely unhealthy co-dependency doesn’t rear up later and stab me. Can’t keep him awake more than brief stints.”

Cas was slipping back and he felt his skin as his own again, which was too damn weird. The sword was gone and Cas was back to being that flame that brushed against his mind. Gabriel was already turning the corner and he got himself going, following down the hallway towards a door.

“Can’t you, you know, just suck the bad out?”

Gabriel stopped dead, and just stared at him as if he had fallen from the sky. Well, that was if there was actually a sky over them which he sincerely doubted.

“Suck the bad out?”

“I just, I dunno, I thought something like you –“

Suddenly, Gabriel was all up in their space and he felt Cas bristle but not try to stab anything so that had to be a sign things weren’t dangerous. Though pissed off beings of cosmic power typically would rank as number one in his ‘bad things to piss off’ book. There was a finger on his chest, a low wattage threat and he managed to muster up a glare to give right back.

“Sometimes I wonder if you were dropped repeatedly. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the carnage count but everything wants you on a silver platter and if I was smart I’d stick an apple in your mouth and serve you up to my brothers.”

“You low down, son of a bitch –“

“Right now, I’m trying to keep him from cracking without sending up a signal flare. I’m sure Cassie has told you about grace and using it, the less the better because Michael is sniffing around at our heels and he’s the best bloodhound.” Gabriel suddenly grinned, something unsettlingly in that smile. “And oh so many teeth I don’t think you want to meet.”

Cas trembled inside him and just by the words alone he knew that he did not want to meet the leader of heaven anytime soon. Push that met off as long as possible and maybe there was some clause that Michael couldn’t beat him senseless if by some marginal chance he found himself in line before the pearly gates.

“Which also means,” Gabriel said, pushing open the door, “don’t sleep unless you can’t help it. I’d ward you more but the last thing I need is Michael focusing on me and not you.”

He swallowed and stepped into the room, all white outside of the hardwood floors; coloring that supplied a heavenly vibe all its own. Sam was there, on something like a thin bed but a whole hell of a lot better than that flimsy ass cot him and Bobby had to use. A band was on his wrist that he could see and he pretty much assumed they were on all appendages that could be used for flailing and/or mayhem.

It was okay though because Sam was awake, eyes blinking a few times and he smiled. Sam actually smiled in a way that wasn’t all poisonous and spite filled. Some frantic portion of himself wanted to believe it was just another construct.

_‘It is Sam. ‘_

“Hey,” his brother rasped, voice sound like it hadn’t been watered in a century. “You two okay?”

“Yeah, Sammy. We’re alright.” He went towards the bed, looking back at every other step to make sure Gabriel stayed in the doorway. And he did, arms folded across his chest, something challenging in that face, like he deserved respect and Dean wanted to scoff at that notion. “How you feel?”

“Like I’ve been run over and gutted a few dozen times.” A grimace and then those sad eyes and Dean shook his head at him.

That stupid hair was in Sam’s face, looking like it was all sticking in his eyes and he brushed it back a little. It had to bother Sam. It would him. Well, if he ever let his hair get close to that long and hell would be out saving humans before that happened. He didn’t know what to do here, what to say to make it right because there wasn’t anything to make any of this right.

Sam’s expression was telling him that it showed.

“Just, just keep going, Sam. Alright? I mean, you walked away and we’re here and we’ll figure out something,” he managed and heard a snort of disbelief from the doorway.

“Still don’t like you,” Sam said, voice louder and Dean knew very well which direction that was pointed to.

“Don’t care if you do.”

“I don’t want to leave you with him but I can’t to a lot for this.”

“I know,” Sam said, voice so quiet it was hard to hear. “I did this to myself.”

“Sam –“

“I should have just listened to you,” Sam said before a shudder ran through him. Something was coming, he could feel it in the change of air around him as a rustling sounded behind them.

“Heartwarming moments aside, you two get. Got to get back to what we were doing before you dragged your carcass off my couch.”

Without another word, they were back in the hallway, door closed firmly in their face as Cas stopped him from reaching for the knob. Dean swore under his breath, not liking this one bit. It smelled of a big load of nothing at the end, prolonging what could be passably called freedom before that whole destiny thing bit them in the ass. Not that being out in the open was better, it wasn’t and he knew that as he kept trying for the door, Cas managing to hold him back.

“You trust the bastard with him?”

_‘We were close once.’_

“Yeah, well, that once isn’t here anymore, Cas.”

 _‘True.’_ A pause as if the angel was considering something and Dean wanted to ask just how screwed Cas actually was. _‘He would not put himself into the fray just to kill or harm us.’_

“Yeah, but we can’t really guarantee a ‘later on’ sentiment here.”

A sadness was in him, plucking away at something he would rather not think of as his soul as Dean drug himself from the door. It wasn’t like he wanted to leave Sam but what the hell could he do for him? The last time they went through this the kid threw himself against walls and him and Bobby had to tranq him to get him tied up. There hadn’t even been a solid bet there that it would work if Sam really put his mind to it.

The kitchen was before them and he felt his stomach trying to eat itself. “Aren’t you supposed to help the whole needing things BS?”

_‘Apologies, I am not able to.’_

Somehow, Cas didn’t sound all that apologetic as Dean went to open the fridge. Upon investigation, there were things that looked passable, meats and such though he wasn’t sure how long they’d been here. Or if they were actually real. If they were created and he ate them could Gabriel do something to him after?

Some story of the Greek chick who got trapped part time in hell and he was tempted to swear off all food forever just to not be under the angel’s thumb.

_‘Archangel.’_

“Could have used his help back when it mattered.”

A sensation, like Cas was nodding which was trippy as all hell as he pulled out the meat, debating how long they could go. So many things could have been different if someone in the know had stepped in and said ‘no more’.

 

* * *

 

 

There had to be something better to wake up too. Well not wake up as that was the wrong way to put it, maybe start dreaming about. He was seriously going to have to ask Cas what the hell was up with this. Well, after he got the lecture he knew would be incoming from Gabriel but a man could only drink so much coffee and take so many pisses in front of curious angels.

“Cas.” Anything else that he may have wanted to toss out there was dead before it hit his lips to make room for the next word he never thought he’d be saying here. “Dad?”

No. No, that wasn’t right and his stomach curdled. That head tilted at him, their signature move like a lost bird that needed to fly the fuck home right now. This was the look of John Winchester he had seen in the past when Cas had blasted him back there. The one that was young and optimistic, the one that loved mom and had no clue that a hunter wasn’t just some dude in the woods stalking a deer.

“It is a blood line,” the thing that wasn’t his father said and Dean set his jaw. “If your Castiel wasn’t so marginal currently, there would be more discomfort despite your curious trust of him. Though how he has made use of your soul was – unexpected.”

Good points for later and he was bringing that up with Cas at some point because ‘discomfort’ sounded like a polite way of putting ‘agonizing pain’. Though he wasn’t even going to address the whole ‘using of his soul’ portion because he had discussed that thing enough for eternity.

“Guessing Michael.”

“Very good.”

The question of whether this was just an image like with Cas all balled up inside him or if the bastard had tripped the light fantastic to get his meatsuit he didn’t want to know. Didn’t need to know though it felt like Michael had handpicked this particular look just for him.

“Where the hell is Cas?” he demanded instead. His little angelic Jiminy Cricket was most definitely not in viewing distance here. “What did you do to him? I swear, if you –“

“Nothing. I have merely locked him away from our conversation. You, on the other hand, have been most difficult to find.” That calm tone, almost serene like the rest of them but he knew better. Oh yeah, he knew that whatever this thing was, it was used to having his own way. His family wouldn’t have been main attractions for way too friggin’ long if that wasn’t the case. “You swore obedience.”

“To God. I swore obedience to God and since I don’t see him hanging out in here with us, well, think we’re done.”

“Little, foolish child,” Michael said, steeping towards him and it wasn’t dad. Could never be dad no matter what this looked like. Everything was wrong, so not dad in the way it moved, held itself, sounded and he tried to pushing dying strands of loyalty to its form out of reach. “Who is hiding you?”

“Yeah, also, not answering questions.”

“That eye glow and he made himself not back up. “You will answer me.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Buttercup, cause not seeing that happen, even if you do to me what you did to Bobby.”

Michael paused, that head tilt, some strange flex of his muscles that gave an expression that Dean was sure was confusion. “I have not harmed your Robert Singer.”

“Bullshit,” he hissed, point a finger towards the angel, earning a soft amused noise. “I was on the phone with him when your winged minions were all congregating at his house.”

“I would not kill leverage, at least not so early” and he shuddered at the way those words were spoken. So flippant and it shouldn’t surprise him. “He is unharmed at this time.”

A rush of relief and he pushed his hands into his hair, leaning his head back. Breathe, just breathe he told himself trying not to show anything else. It could still be a lie, something to make him more compliant but it was some strain of hope that he hadn’t had thirty seconds ago. Bobby alive, probably pissed as all hell and probably giving heaven a headache but alive.

“Now, Dean. I have answered your question. Kindly answer mine. Who is protecting you?”

“What, so you can track us down faster and gut them? I don’t even like him but even I won’t do that.”

Michael was suddenly much closer, far to close and he could see something in those eyes that was so foreign that even Cas didn’t have it when he was all angeled up. Something that spoke of eternity and he tried to beat back the growing panic for a few more seconds.

“As you wish,” Michael said, a wave of his hand and Cas was there. The angel was moving immediately in front of him and Dean already knew he had his trusty sword out again.

“Michael.”

“Hello, Castiel. You have made such a mess of so many things you simply do not comprehend. Dean refused to tell me who is protecting you. I hope perhaps out of contrition you would inform me instead."

“No.”

“See, nothing to learn here so you can just fly off now,” Dean managed and there was a dark look set into Michael’s face.

Cas didn’t move but he knew it, felt himself immobilized as Cas rocked his head back, a scream that would shatter glass on earth as fell to his knees.

“Cas!”

“Don’t.” A wounded look in those eyes, staring up and Dean opened and closed his mouth, unable to get out a sound. Michael still had that hand outstretched and he wondered if he could kill Cas from his dream.

“Yes,” and Dean so wanted to kick the angel for answering. “He cannot find you but with my state, connected to you, yes.”

“Cas, man, I wasn’t worth any of this.”

Another scream as Michael closed his fist again before releasing the tension, Cas breathing and he really shouldn’t have to. He shouldn’t be panting, a hand catching his wrist and Dean wanted to tell him to stop. He could stop, he did enough.

“If you kill him, I will never give you what you want.”

“He is going to die, Dean. That is already in his future as there is no restoration possible,” and he groaned at Michael’s words because damn it he hadn’t wanted to believe that. Didn’t want to know that Cas couldn’t be undone from this giant mess. “If he tells me, I will make it quick as that is the only mercy I have left to offer him.”

That hand on his arm tightened and he looked back down at the angel, who was staring up at him. His eyes looked hollowed and filled to the brim with pain at the same time, a light that was dimming further in them and he wanted to beg him to tell, to not tell, he didn’t know. He didn’t have a clue what to do here to make any of it just end.

“No, you just, just no.”

“Dean,” Michael said, appearing to have an infinite level of patience that Dean was sure he didn’t actually possess. “All you have to do is pray when you wake up. I’ll let him stay until he fades to the last strand.”

“And Sam?”

“Your precious Sammy will have to make due on his own, once I deal with what has stupidly agreed to protect you.” He is so close to saying a name, just to see the shock that would wipe the smugness off the bastards face. “Granted, he wouldn’t last long, but it’s better than you have now.”

Cas was pulling on his arm, body refusing to respond because Michael had him lashed down tight. There was a head shake, eyes staring up at him and he can’t help but think of that little blue flame in him. The one that was flickering and pain racked right now in front of him.

“If I am to die here, I want you to know that I understand now.”

“Understand what, Cas?” This didn’t seem like the greatest moment for deep seated Cas insight and knowing this angel it may be why they called it Scotch tape. Not to mention the rage filled archangel a few feet away barely keeping himself in check.

“Yes, Castiel, tell us what you understand now,” Michael intoned, eyes a shade that made him think of those things that glowed in the deep darks of the ocean.

That hand gripped his arm so hard, it felt like his bones were about to be ground together. That face still turned up to him, a twitch in that jaw. “What He wanted. What He was asking.”  
“I don’t – “ he looked at Michael who had something that might be called the start of frown. That hand lowered just slightly, his attention full throttle on Cas.

“What it meant to love you,” the angel said, voice still strained and Dean was suddenly grateful for being rooted because it kept him from just full out lurching forward and colliding face first with the ground. “To love all of you but I admit that I have not gotten that far. Only the ones I have met, but I only have so much time left.”

There was something so earnest in that statement, pleading for him to understand whatever this failure was. Michael was unreadable at this point, eyes still bright, the color of the sky now and fingers flexing slightly.

“What the hell is he talking about?”

“Father commanded us to love humans more than everything, even Himself.” Michael’s voice was firm but there was a strange note to it that Dean couldn’t place. Some underlying thing here that he was just too much of a stupid human to pick up on. “It is why Lucifer fell. But it does not matter, as this was what he has commanded. In the end, it too shall come to pass.”

“You don’t – “he stopped, trying to find his words and restarted. “Don’t you do this for me.”

“Dean,” and Cas had his attention all over again. There was so little he could do, couldn’t move more than his head and stand there like a fish out of water. “Will you apologize to Jimmy and his family that I could not keep my promise? Of what I’ve done?”

“Sure, Cas,” he swallowed, Michael becoming more rigid. “I will, I’ll make sure.”

“Thank you.” Dean knew it wasn’t just for that as Cas looked back at the archangel preparing to smite. “I have no fear of death.”

“Wait, hold on one hot second here. Is he telling the truth? That this is what you’re supposed to be doing?”

“I am a good son, I do as Father has asked,” Michael said, voice still flat, staring at Cas like he wasn’t even sure what he was. Dean wanted to point out that he didn’t think wiping out the earth was on the same page as loving humans.

Though angel, so he wasn’t sure if some screwy logic got them to this point.

“Okay, let’s do this, huh? I’d feel pretty rotten just handing over something that is helping us just like that. Can we at least talk to him? I mean, I got to sleep again.”

The unspoken threat of 'if you murder him in front of me I will never give you what you want' hung in the air like a threatening curl of smoke announcing the coming of a wild fire.

“Very well. If you do not, I will extract it by force from what is left of Castiel in front of you, and then Singer will be next.”

He was gasping for air on the couch, arms flailing as he blinked, focusing on the fact that Gabriel was looming over them. That smart ass looked remarkable unhappy, and he grimaced just out of instinct.

“What did I tell you about going to sleep?”

“Well sorry, I’ll try to plan my weekly nap better.” Gabriel was still glaring, Cas curled up so tight in him and he couldn’t process anything right now. “He wanted your name, by the way. We didn’t give it while he tried to fry Cas. Bought some time before he straight up murders him for it, so a thank you would be appreciated.”

“I see. Don’t drift off again, Sam’s almost done.”

They were alone then, him and Cas.

“You – you’re dying.”

_‘You do not need to protect me.’_

“Shove it, Cas. I get to protect whoever the hell I want to, whether you like it or not. No say in the matter,” he snapped, getting up to find food or something to keep him preoccupied.

He was certain there was a faint twist of happiness through them as he made his way to the kitchen, determined not to dwell on the rest of the world breaking news for at least the next five minutes.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

 

 

So much coffee. It was growing to the point that everything tasted like it and he was catching five minute naps complete with drooling. Not that he thought the scumbag who had them here would be all relenting on fixing anything to help them out but he knew it was only a matter of a time before he got Michael full throttle again.

Not that being awake helped matters since he kept thinking about Cas dying in there. Nor did the tight lipped angel help him out at all about just how close that date was looming.

Instead, they flipped through Gabriel’s rather impressive collection of movies, the angel bothering to ask questions as to why they do the things they do in these things. The answer was always to move the plot, not that he would tell Cas that directly. He felt it would depress the angel for some reason. Overly comfy furniture did not help their pursuit to stay with the waking – and he knew Cas was contributing what little he could to their mission – so he found himself sitting on the floor. Legs all splayed out in front of him, rocked back so their weight was on his palms staring up at the TV.

Just when he felt that he was about to get another barrage of curious questions he heard a noise from the hallway.

Sam.

There was his brother, leaning half up against the wall still in the clothes he came in all worn and exhausted looking. Hair stuck out in a dozen different directions and he knew Sam had not been in front of a mirror because he’d never let anyone see him like that. Those eyes, they were clear though as he scrambled up to his feet.

“Hey, Sammy. You good?”

As a response, his brother lumbered forward and Dean had a moment to reflect that his brother could have made a perfect movie monster villain in those old Hammer films before arms were latched around him. So tight that he could barely breath and he thought he heard a hitch of breath.

“You supposed to be up, Sam?”

A nod against his shoulder, and he noticed he was not being released anytime soon. In fact he was certain he was being held tighter, Cas all up in him and amused.

“It’s gonna be okay –“

Head shaking, like a shaggy dog and finally he was let go. Sam drew back, head down, face turned away and he didn’t have a way to fix this. To say he was still pissed would be a Cas level understatement so he scuffed his boot on the carpet, hands shoved into his pockets. Uncomfortable wasn’t his bag, he didn’t do it naturally.

_‘He believes you hate him.’_

“Thanks, captain obvious,” he said without thinking, Sam finally glancing over for a brief second. Dean managed a hand wave, trying not to look pained. “Habit,” he supplied weakly. “Helps keep my grapefruit from exploding. You hungry?”

Sam seemed relieved at their conversation being anything that wasn’t what they should be addressing which was fine by him. One of those giant mitts combed through his hair, Sam nodding because words were apparently not his thing.

“Okay,” he said, steering his brother towards the kitchen. “I’m guessing you’ve figured out how screwed we are.”

“A blind, lobotomized church mouse would know that,” came an indignant voice and Dean glanced over to see Gabriel by the fridge.

“And you’re plan is?”

“It was to help you. I helped.” A shrug, something like a chocolate bar appearing in his hand. “End of story.”

“No, no it is not the end of the story. Cas is dying and still has more cojones than you.”

Sam’s attention was on him fully now, that not all there expression he had been courting finally lifting, forming itself into more like shock. “Cas is dying?”

“Yeah, Sam. And Michael’s been tap dancing through my dreams. Says if I don’t give up the winged freak over there than he’ll turn my Deanland into a Cas torture session.”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic, Dean. As long you stay living and occupying that thing you call a body Cas should be fine. Well, barring Michael. Can’t account for that.”

“Do something.”

He wasn’t surprised by the vehemence in Sam’s voice, that hair whipping around as his brother looked at Gabriel. Who, of course, simply crossed his arms across his chest and let out a long sigh.

Jesus, they were children.

“What exactly do you want me to do, bucko? Not like I’m on Michael’s list of most loved family.”

That push again, Cas fighting his way up but it was far weaker than just the last time he had done this and Dean didn’t fight. Didn’t want to this time around as the angel took the helm, Sam staring at them like they had grown a separate head to accomplish the switching of the watch.

“You asked me what my plan was,” Cas said, his voice was almost foreign to him now as the angel operated it. “I ask you now, brother,” the word spat out, “what is your plan?”

“We’re doing it, okay?”

“To keep us locked in your created realm? How long, Gabriel? Forever, while Lilith is free, and our brothers scour the world? We both know they will not be gentle to the humans.”

“I shouldn’t be involved already –“

“Why are you?”

It was Sam, staring at Gabriel who was looking stormier by the second, that oppressive feeling mingling with the air. Dean was sure that if they had been outside they’d have a little thunder storm to match the bitch fest. Cas hummed in agreement.

“Can still hear you, Dean, and my reasons are my own.”

“No,” Sam pointed a finger at the archangel, “no, you don’t get that as an option.”

“I’m sorry, you think you get to dictate anything –“

“Yes,” Sam said, folding his arms over his chest. Dean had seen that look. It was the one that forewarned his brother was about to get amazingly stubborn about something and he’d snicker if he still had control of that function.

This was never going to cease being weird.

“Oh, really. Please tell us, Samuel Winchester the Great, what we should be doing.” Gabriel made a mocking bow, a sneer twisting at the edges of his mouth. “Castiel can barely do what he’s doing now, you two have bullseyes painted right between the eyes and everything wants you. So let me in on your great, show stopping plan on how to solve all of life’s problems. Brownie points if sex is involved.”

“You.”

“I’m flattered, Sambo, really I am –“

“It's Sam, and you owe me,” his brother got out, a tone that cut him deep inside. It made him think of juiced up Sammy, raring to go after demon bitches.

“I owe you nothing,” and the mirth was gone, Gabriel going into something that Dean wanted to call full smite mode.

“You apparently don’t want this,” Sam continued because hey, why stop now.

“I saved your asses. I didn’t have to do that, so be damn grateful.”

“Coward.” It was Cas. Dean was feeling slightly stunned as he felt anger course through him that was not his own. They took a step forward and he was so not into movement not caused by him. “It’s why you won’t ward his dreams. It would tell Michael exactly who was hiding us. Who has that kind of power that is against heaven outside of you?”

Gabriel pressed his lips together, jaw clenched as everything seemed tight and close to exploding.

_‘Does he hate his family that much that he just doesn’t give a shit?’_

“I love my family. Love them,” Gabriel snarled.

_‘So, coward it is then.’_

There was suddenly a rather small archangel in their face, that feeling of heaviness in the air growing thicker by the second. “Don’t you dare talk about what you don’t know.”

_‘Oh, I know. Things got bad and you ran away. Couldn’t stand up to them then, so why do it now, right? Easier to run. Probably why Michael has an even bigger stick up his ass –‘_

They were thrown up against the fridge, Gabriel’s arm close to cutting off all air. Cas though, man Cas didn’t even give. Dean knew their face had a pretty good glare going on right now, the feeling of an angel sword about to be summoned in a few seconds was almost overwhelming.

“He’s right,” Cas rasped out due to throat constriction. “And you know it. You helped us to simply keep us locked up for eternity and I refuse Gabriel.”

_‘Seriously? Man, I’m never getting laid again at this rate.’_

“Yeah? And besides, Deano, I can whip up something. Though it might be strange to you since I guarantee it will be disease free. You can give my little bro an education.”

He was fairly certain he heard Sammy make some kind of choking noise to their left.

_‘No. Just, just no.’_

“I will free them,” Cas said, voice even, “even if it takes what little left that I have.”

Gabriel’s eyes had a faint hue to them, that angel coming to the surface and Dean didn’t like that. No sir, he did not and he wanted to struggle away from the angel. Cas was having none of that and really, two people for one skin just did not work.

_‘If you hurt him I will find a way to end you.’_

Those eyes were still staring at them, calculating. Then that arm was drawn back, their feet on terra firms and he noticed his brother over by where they had been standing, pinching the bridge of his nose.

_‘What’s eating him?’_

Cas, to his benefit stared and cocked their head, Sam just sighing deeper.

“I’m accepting that my life has permanently derailed,” he muttered and Dean realized his brother had just watched a mostly one sided threat conversation. “But,” and he looked up, locking eyes with Gabriel who looked close to just leaving, “that doesn’t change anything. You could have stopped a lot of this a long time ago. You didn’t but here we are now and you have to decide what the hell side you’re actually on.”

“Easy words when it’s not your ass being offered up.”

“It is,” Sam said, his face getting that little twitch muscle in his jaw that showed he was thirty seconds from full rampage mode. “What about God? Doesn’t he –“

Gabriel let out a low sound, something that maybe started off as a laugh before it got sucked up and drenched in bitterness. “Dad’s not answering the phone.”

_‘Well, shit. Who the hell is running this crapfest then?’_

“You met him. Mikey all up in heaven wanting to be the best of the best, the most dutiful.” Gabriel sneered at them, something unflattering as he watched Sam break a little beside them. “Daddy’s hasn’t come back yet, so don’t hold out for some miracle. All we got now is to wait as long as we can.”

“Gabriel, please –“ Sam tried, head dropping as it all suddenly felt so terminal. The writing so plastered on the wall that no amount of bleach was ever going to rinse it off.

A flutter of wings and they were down one archangel, as Cas slide back. That mental image he had of a tiny blue flame but he could feel how much weaker it was getting, dribbling out across existence.

Couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t fix it.

“Sit, Sam, before you timber onto the floor.”

“Thanks, Dean, for being ever so delicate. Not that the way you two do that isn’t weird or disturbing or anything.”

He had been reaching to open the fridge he had been so unceremoniously thrust up against earlier but turned. “Sam –“

“Don’t. It’s okay.” His brother managed a smile, something that didn’t look like it was about to be melted right off from exhaustion. “Promise. Just weird. A little unnerving. Does he have actual food here or just the trickster crap?”

“Food,” Dean confirmed, grateful at the conversation change opening the fridge to find something to feed his already over fed brother. Not that it would do a lot of good keeping themselves alive if this was all Gabriel had planned for them.

_‘I do not know what he will decide to do.’_

Dean bobbed his head because yeah, no clue on that one either. He’d probably have to make a choice when he passed out again and Michael showed up to collect his pound of flesh. Not that at this point he wouldn’t feel a little good about turning in that bastard.

For now, he put his mind to things he could manage and held up a cartoon of eggs. Sam gave a nod. Breakfast, that was about his speed and he got to work.

 

* * *

 

 

It was getting to the point that was just plain done with this field. Even if he was awake and saw it he’d just turn around and walk away. Especially since the company he had this time was wearing the face of dad all over again and no Cas in sight. A small piece of him was thankful for that because it didn’t mean they were starting out the gig with angel torturing from the get go.

Not that Gabriel had ever shown back up to say yay or nay to throwing around his name. Even if the winged bastard was a pompous, self-centered jackass he still wasn’t keen on just handing him over but he would to save Cas.

He leaned against the car, arms folded across his chest as he was watched Michael.

“Gabriel has informed me of the situation.”

Somehow, someway he managed to not just drop his mouth open at the pure shock of that news. Information that would have been useful and saved hours of stress and coffee binges while Sam sat like a morose moose adrift on the couch.

Not that he should be relaxing, which was what he had been doing when Michael was all up in his space. A hand moving his chin this way and that as though he was shopping for a prized pig. Dean curled his lip just managing to resist the urge to shove him off.

Best not to piss of things that could torture his angel friend.

“What have you done?” the archangel was muttering and Dean really wanted to point out he hadn’t been doing a damn thing. All he had wanted was for Sam to not be evil, and he wasn’t right now. Michael’s eyes were dark, searching for something as he shifted, uncomfortable in so many ways. “One moment, you are the most broken, lowest creature on earth to the extent that I must alter reality for you to remind you of what you are. And now, here you are, amassing your own ground force.”

“I don’t – no that’s not my thing,” he managed, those eyes looking at him as though Michael’s little engineered jaunt through office life turned ghost hunter had been too much. Though he was pleased it hadn’t been Zachariah behind all that, at least not planning wise. “I just wanted to save Sam, hopefully keep the world from burning in the process.”

Michael tilted his head back, like he was searching for what part was burned out and needing fixing before finally releasing him. That alone was a blessing, since dad manhandling him was not what he needed.

“What I don’t understand, is why.”

“Why?”

As if that wasn’t a loaded gun of a question.

“Why would they follow you?”

“Follow me?” he let out a breathy laugh, a slight frown on Michael’s face at that. “Man, I don’t know about follow. Or listen. Or really anything. If you figure it out let me know, because no clue.”

“I know you,” Michael said, voice low as he turned to look out across the expanse of his messed up flower field. Shame it wasn’t real, he could probably have a booming florist business because he was certain there were even more plants now. “I know the exact second of your birth, your first coherent thoughts, your first steps, favorite foods and why you crave them –“

“Man, those are like hits on the back of a baseball card,” he broke in since the last thing he wanted to know was more about his apparent lifelong stalker. “They tell you how many but not what’s in the dude to begin with to get those.”

That head was glancing back at him now, all narrowed eyes and Dean realized the archangel was attempting to decipher that. Dean Winchester, angel confuser and part time murderer of heavenly things. Seemed like a native calling, given all the blank expressions he got from Cas. Well, at least when he could see him and they weren’t melded together.

“They’re facts about me,” he offered, the angel still watching in ways that were as distinct from dad as a priest was from sex. “They’re just stats. Like, if I stated how many wings or eyes you had. Which I’m guessing is a lot,” he added hurriedly as that eye squint deepened.

“Your point?”

“My point is, that you are more than just your body parts or milestones or whatever else. Well, I think you are cause Cas seems to be that way. And Gabriel.”

He swallowed, Michael all in his face again, staring as though trying to wish him into dust and he could feel a hand near his neck.

“We aren’t just weapons to move around a game board,” he got out.

Michael was unreadable, and he tried not to stare because eternity would be looking back at him, spreading out before him as each second ticked off. That this thing, something so old and probably far bigger than Cas wanted him as a vessel and the sheer thought of having that kind of power inside him made him want to crawl away.

“I love Lucifer,” Michael offered, searching his face for something he didn’t understand. “I wish to kill him as much as you would want to kill Sam. But I must do what is right and just, what is commanded of me as a good son.”

“Man, trying to please an absentee dad is a dead end street. I guarantee it.”

That sensation of a hand on his throat, thumb pressing against his Adam’s apple just enough to be uncomfortable as that gaze on him got darker. His hands were clenched at his sides, nothing to hold onto, no way to really defend himself. Not really, even here in his own realm.

“I cannot disobey.”

“And if Cas is right?”

Michael was impossibly closer, like he was preparing to eat him. Dean was amazed he was still conscious because it felt like everything was filled with just this angel. Thick, heavy, a million times worse when Cas had been all pissed off in his dreams. This world seemed to tremble under the sheer magnitude of it.

Distantly, he worried that there may not be room for Cas if all this room was being taken up by Michael. Which was stupid because Cas wasn’t even in his dream currently. Didn’t help the worry though as the air shimmered, a haze like late summer heat pulsing up from the ground.

“And if he is?”

“I kind of think maybe God wouldn’t want half of humanity to die bloody, for the earth to burn because Lucifer threw a temper tantrum.”

Finally, finally the winged bastard pulled back, turning to look up at his large of sky that was still washed with that deep sapphire blue. Night and day all mixed up in one and he got his feet to feel like the ground was even. That he wasn’t just going to pass out and wouldn’t Sam endlessly mock him for that?

Cas would probably have some fruity angel wisdom about bearing the strength of Michael. Not that it would be much better, though the air didn’t feel as though it was too much to even breath in.

“The wheel is already in motion, Dean,” the archangel said, voice so quiet and final sounding and he tried not to just sink all the way to the ground at that.

“No way to get that to stop being in motion? I mean, I get we don’t got reverse here but there’s no way to throw a tree on the tracks to keep the train from pulling into the station.”

Michael looked over his shoulder, brow with a small crease and he realized he was definitely on a role with his angel confusion tactics. What that bought he didn’t know, but hey, he had that going for him.

He was alone, until it registered that Cas was there, all rumpled up in his trench coat that he was never without even here. Yet his eyes weren’t worried this time, or pain filled, so that was something. Dean leaned his own head back, feeling the smooth line of the Impala.

“My brother was here,” Cas stated, as if it was common to have archangels and angels wandering around in one’s dreams.

“Yep. Said the wheel was in motion and probably unable to hit the brakes.”

“That he even considered –“ Cas took a breath, joining him in staring up at the sky.

There was something peaceful about it. Somewhere he had read that blue was soothing, maybe it was Cas trying to make things that were soothing so he wouldn’t wig out by all the things stopping by for a chat.

“It is the color of your soul,” the angel offered and Dean scoffed shaking his head. Things he did not need to know. “All of this is part of what you crave, what it materializes as. A piece of your desires.”

And he so didn’t need to know that because it was devoid of family. No people, no monsters, no one to be saved or had been save and there was hand on his arm again.

“It is about you here, what you want for the world.”

“I want an abundance of overly bright flowers and good cars?”

“Dean.”

“What?” he managed a smirk and Cas had that little mouth twitch that he was guessing was an attempted smile.

The angel went back to leaning against the car beside him. He tried not to think of those brief flashes, the ones that showed he had caught a glimpse of what was all curled up under that flesh he always appeared as. That he knew that.

“You have made Michael blink.”

Dean glanced over, the angel staring off across the fields and he wanted ask what the hell that even meant though he knew. Oh, he knew and he shifted a bit uncomfortable. “Kind of think I had some help here.”

“Yes, but you were the lynch pin that caused the rest to slide to this point.”

“I started it, Cas.” He can barely say it. It was a terrible truth, one that Cas had so righteously declared as fate before, as if that made it better. The world was tipping over towards the wrong side of the edge because of him, all him.

His knees felt all soft and flimsy as he slide halfway down the side of the car, fist at his mouth. He bit into the flesh, trying to keep it back in. He was just some broken down human, nothing special, nothing more and he failed a lot. A whole hell of a lot of between the wins he managed to eek out.

“You are more, but even if you were only that, Dean, it has been enough.”

Shaking his head, he breathed in heavily through his nose. A chance, some small morsel of not going ahead with the whole world ending nonsense was more than they had twenty-four hours ago. Not that he could ever allow his hopes to rise, couldn’t let that happen because when they fell he was certain it would shatter what was left of him.

A hand was on his back. Looking out of the corner of his eye he raised an eyebrow at Cas’ constipated, awkward look.

“Comfort is not a common concept to me,” the angel offered and Dean snorted into his fist. “I know you are still angry with me, but I consider you my friend.”

“Cas.”

A click in his throat, that he shouldn’t be all broken in pieces because this creature sharing his suit sans rent was going to die. Was going to up and disappear into nothing because he thought angels pretty much were just vaporized on impact with death. They didn’t have heaven of their own, just a vast array of nothing waiting for them.

That hand was on the back of his neck and it felt so real, more real than it had any right to here. Some flash of anger at this whole damn mess. At what he was, that a being like Cas could even be near him.

“You do not have to bear this alone anymore.”

For some reason, just those words and he was gone, the world a blurry curtain as he slide the rest of the way to the ground, pressing his face to his knees. Cas beside him, hand a still warm reminder as, for the first time in so long, he wept.

 

* * *

 

 

He rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the itchy feeling out, the one that settled in after staring at screens and useless crap for far too long. He needed to be doing something. They needed to be doing something. Everything seemed stretched out and holding just before the breaking point with Cas in there still hanging on a thread a time. Sam was looking at him, worried, eyebrows drawn together and he was already on his feet, picking up the first thing his hand found and throwing it at the nearest wall.

It exploded in a satisfying cascade of glass and petals.

“What the hell, Winchester?” Gabriel was demanding, appearing in the room. “Don’t take out your repressed crap on my house.”

“What’s the difference? Not like you can’t just conjure more anyways.”

“So not the point –“ and Sam was on his feet, between them before someone did something stupid and got exploded.

“Guy’s come on.” Sam trying for peace maker and it didn’t stop that restless pull up inside, that thrumming that they needed to be elsewhere.

“Sam, we can’t sit around and play Parcheesi for the rest of eternity holed up in here. I mean, I guess we could but at some point we’re going to lose our minds and it doesn’t stop wing freaks or black eyed dicks from taking out their pent out frustrations on earth.”

“I know. It’s just –“

Sam stopped, just cut himself off abruptly as he slumped back down on the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and Dean didn’t know what to do with that. There wasn’t a lot they could do and he didn’t know how much more he could take. Being cooped up in a place with walls and no doors.

Gabriel though, well he was looking a hell of a lot more shifty than normal and that was saying a lot. Some sort of a lean in him that wasn’t typical. Even with his strange ire over broken crap. Cas seemed to sense it too, that shifting he was finding like a second nature in him as the angel studied his brother out of their shared eyes.

A sigh, something just plain done and Gabriel dropped the act.

“Michael wants a met.”

“A met?” Dean said, confused since it sounded more like a power lunch and not a discussion of negotiations and war plans.

“For what?” Sam added.

“Don’t know. Just that he’s requesting it with all of us.”

“And you waited till now to tell us?” Furious was what he was and he felt Cas mirror that as well. “I mean, I’m not for taking Cas anywhere near him again but this is shit we need to know.”

“Well now you know. So what?” Gabriel was closer now, all pretense gone and he looked old, a livid ancient world destroying power wrapped up in there. Dean sorely wanted to point out that they didn’t even have a say in staying here but they still had a right to know what was going on.

“Is it just a ploy to grab us or something else?”

Damn it if Sam didn’t look hopeful and it deflated Gabriel a little, unruffled a few of his million feathers he had in a twist.

“Not grabbing anyone, he gave his word on our safety.”

“And you trust him?”

Another shuffle in him, Cas thoroughly involved in what was going on now. _'Michael would not break his word. After speaking to him I do not know what would happen but if he has guaranteed our safety it would be so.’_

Dean nodded, feeling weirdly off put as Sam was looking at him. He rubbed his arm absently, realizing Sam was the only here not hearing voices at this point.

He envied his brother greatly for that.

“He says that Mike won’t break his word. If that’s what is on the table that’s what we get.”

“Then why aren’t we doing that? Right now?”

Sam was on his feet, all lumbering and huge and just plan Sam, the one that he remembered. The one that pleaded about how monsters could be good and not everything that wasn’t all the way human had to die.

Dean cleared his throat, not sure if that was going to get them killed or save them.

“Who’s he wearing?” Dean asked, remembering Zachariah’s word about Mikey needing something extra special in way of Muppets. “I don’t know if I can go and see dad staring back at us.”

Gabriel shifted, shoulders rolling and he couldn’t tell what that meant.

“Well?” Sam asked, demanded really, voice tight and harsh.

“Adam.”

One of Sam’s giant hands tightened into a fist at the sting of that little revelation. Apparently backup plan B – the one for when one’s vessels got too annoying.

“He made a deal,” Gabriel continued, voice subdued. “He said Adam wanted to be with his mom and that’s what he did in order to come to earth.”

Dean wasn’t sure if this was worse or better than dad being all up in the mix and Sam looked like he was trying to find some happy thought about the whole thing over there. Not that it mattered because it could still be a trick, some sort of lie to lure them into a false sense of security. To make them trust the head honcho monster of heaven.

_‘Michael withholds the truth, he does not lie. While others may do it, he will not.’_

Gabriel let out a long breath in a hiss. “Cassie’s right. Mike’s a lot of things a lot of the time but lying? He considers that beneath him.”

“So,” Sam ventured, getting his big hopeful look back in place again. “So, that means we can try then right? Try to talk to him to see if –“

“Kiddo, all Mike wants is to please Daddy and he believes in destiny and no free will. No choice. It would be like trying to take down a brick wall with a feather. You wouldn’t even tickle him.”

“But, you’ve been a pagan angel,” Sam soldiered on, stubborn suddenly. “That can’t have part of this. Or that we’d end up here, or any of this, what’s happened. Please, Gabriel, hiding here for the rest of time is just as bad as letting everything happen.”

A pinched look and Dean hoped that the archangel was in pain. “And you morons think I actually want to see him.”

“See, we just don’t care about your private angst,” Dean said, way to cheerfully, feeling a flow of agreement from Cas. “Really, we don’t. We do care about stuff not burning down while we watch reruns and start a quilting circle out of boredom.”

“I think you need more than two people for that, Dean,” Sam supplied and he just didn’t have a thing to say to that. “Even if you’re like technically two. It’s like covens, you need a certain amount to –“

“Enough!”

Gabriel was looking a bit too bright over there, as if they had a way to even escape him currently. Though driving him insane over the next few decades was a distinct possibility.

 _‘It is,’_ Cas provided, thoughtful, as if he was putting effort into schemes in there and Dean was proud of his angel.

“You and your stupid, suicidal tendencies.”

And then they were once again alone, the shards of glass from the broken vase still resting on the floor in a sparkly pile and Dean flopped back down on the couch. Maybe, in about five hundred years they’d get somewhere and it would be before the earth was overrun with demons, especially with Lilith running free.

That there would still be something to save.

“Hate waiting.”

“I know,” Sam said quietly. “I know.”  
  
 


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

 

 

It was an large expanse of dead grass, with a few green stalks clinging to life as they landed, Dean hating that head spinning, constipating motion of angel airlines. The air was thick and downright roasting under the overcast sky but he wasn’t sure if that was the truth or if they had just spent too long in an artificially controlled room.

Michael was there and it was obvious, so friggin’ obvious that Adam was only literally skin deep right now. Everything that had been their brother that they had never even gotten to know was wiped out with the sheer power of all of heaven staring at them in the face.

“Gabriel.”

That tone was flat, a distant sort of sound in it, like greeting someone by habit instead of actually wanting to.

“Heya, Mikey. Long time no see.”

“You make the mistake of assuming I wish to speak to you, let alone here your voice. Your abandonment of me, of heaven, is no better than Lucifer in the end, little brother.”

To his shock, Gabriel put his head down, looking away, a roll in his body that was so unlike him. As if the angel portion of him had just slumped forward and couldn’t get it all back upright again. When he looked back though it was him Michael was focused on and he wanted to run. Just go sprinting through the fields like a yipping dog away from this place.

A tremble in Cas and he was figuring that the angel had some similar feelings that he just wasn’t expressing.

“The time ways past this point are dark,” the archangel offered in way of conversation and Dean had zero clue what to do with that.

_‘He cannot see the future. There are no known outcomes past the present at this time.’_

“Assuming that’s bad,” he got out seeing Sam glance over. “Magic eight ball isn’t working for them, Sammy.”

“Ah.”

_‘Michael, is that why you agreed to see us?’_

Dean still wasn’t sure how he felt about his insides asking questions as Michael tilted his head just slightly.

“Yes. It is unprecedented. Not even the prophet can collect a true vision and has ceased to write. Make no mistake, Dean, I truly believe that we are destined one day to be one, that we will bring in paradise.”

He choked, terrified as Michael moved towards him, a glide to his steps as though he made the earth move for him instead of actually walking. Muscles refused to respond, denied him the ability to set into a dead sprint to get the hell away from here. Not that he could outrun something that was able to fly but it was terrible to just be waiting meat.

_‘But you do not believe that time is now.’_

“No, little Castiel. While events became less clear with your interference, do you know when I truly lost my vision into the future?”

Dean shook his head for them but he already knew the answer. Michael was already turning, focusing way too much on Sam who was trying to shrink down to half his size over there.

“You,” the archangel said, going towards him and Dean wanted to reach out and grab him. Wanted to drag him away and say he couldn’t have that.

Michael glanced back at them standing helpless and useless. Gabriel wasn’t moving, just subdued which Dean assumed was like the farthest he could be from his natural self.

“Me?”

“Yes, Samuel. You.” Michael was in front of him, gazing up at his face and Sam looked like he was going to pass out. “When you allied with your brother, things became disjointed. Fragments really, pieces of what could be with no rhyme or reason as to where the belonged. Shortly after, even those too were gone.”

“Sorry,” Sam mumbled like he had up and broke the world.

A hand was on his brother’s chest and he felt Cas suddenly get alarmed and he didn’t need that. He was already damn alarmed enough, thank you very much.

“You feel remorse. Why?”

“What I did, I – it wasn’t right,” Sam stammered out. “What I wanted was right in front of me. I was just lucky enough that it came by to hit me over the head one final time.”

“If we are to do this then I am in need of more than –“

“Do what?” Dean finally demanded, his voice coming back and Gabriel scowled at him like he had broken up some secret tryst. “What the hell are we doing?”

“I cannot leave the world teetering on the brink of annihilation,” Michael said, voice even as he kept his eyes on Sam. All on Sam and Dean swallowed because he knew this was bad in so many ways. “Lilith is simple enough to bury in the bowels of hell once again. But, I need a guarantee and it is a price Sam must pay.”

“No –“

Gabriel was behind them suddenly, trapping his arms behind his back and he could already feel the tears stinging at his eyes brought on from grief and rage. Tricked, they had been tricked and all of this was just to destroy his brother and he couldn’t do that. Even Cas was pushing against Gabriel but the bastard was just too strong, barely straining to hold them back.

Sam was looking at him now, eyes sad but something resigned in them.

“I helped it along,” he said quietly. “If you and Cas hadn’t come and got me we wouldn’t even be here. I’d have done it, set the devil free. It can’t happen again. I’d never come back, I barely did this time.”

Everything felt like it was breaking in him as he watched, some soft edge to Michael’s stoic features for a moment. A flicker of something decent before it smoothed out.

“This will be more painful than anything you have ever known.”

“Do it.”

There wasn’t even a blink, a hesitation before Michael’s hand was in his brother’s chest. Sam was screaming, loud and long and broken and he could see light. Gabriel had him stuck in one place though, and he couldn’t even be by Sam when he was dying. Oh God, his brother was dying in front of him and he couldn’t even fully be there for him.

After an eternity of Sam’s cries of pain, Michael withdrew his hand and Gabriel finally released him. He made it to Sam before he fully hit the ground, body warm.

“Sammy? Please, God, Sammy?”

“Here,” came the rasp, something dry and hoarse and he was damn grateful. Those eyes were half open, not quite focused as he felt Sam’s over grown hand clutch at his arm.

 _‘He purified his soul,’_ Cas said with something he equated with awe and Dean got it. He did as he stared at Sam still in his arms.

“Why?”

“Do not mistake my intentions, Dean Winchester. This merely postpones the inevitable but it is clear that we are not at the proper time for the final battle.” Michael was still stiff, looking down at them as ants but there was tired note to his voice. Like he was really looking forward to his whole apocalypse plan and the little hairless apes ruined it for him.

He couldn’t find words at that, not really knowing what to do as the angel tipped his head, staring deeper into him. Gabriel was closer now, he could feel the archangel near his back.

“There were a million possibilities that lead us to this point,” he continued, voice with a gentler tone as if trying to break through his thick skull. “A million chances that had to come to pass for you to even be born. And so many more for us to be here instead of upon the field of battle.”

“Okay,” he got out, getting the feeling that Cas had a much better grasp on all of this then he did. Maybe the angel would be able to explain it later on when he wasn’t so fried and terrified.

“You must never forget that one day this will come to pass. That on that day there will be no alternative.” Michael moved his head in the other direction as Sam managed to get himself up into a better sitting arrangement instead of being a half fainted damsel.

“And Cas?” he demanded, looking between the archangels. “What? You can’t do anything.”

“Deano, even Michael can’t restore a cast out angel of his rank.”

No, Gabriel should not sound that contrite. Michael should not be standing there looking all regretful, well as much as they could because expressions weren’t their thing but he could sense it. They did everything right, they did what they were supposed to do. Cas was just trying to do what God wanted and he was still going to die. He was still going to be in pain when the rest of them got to just skip off.

_‘Dean, it is alright.’_

“It is not alright, Cas. None of this is alright. You did what you thought was right and –“

 _‘I rebelled, Dean,’_ the angel was whispering to him, trying to make him get something that he didn’t want to. _‘I knew the price of what that was.’_

“Indeed,” Michael said and to his surprise, crouched down in front of them. "I will allow your return to heaven for your final hours.”

 _‘Thank you,’_ Cas answered as Dean tried to get his voice to work and not just open and close his mouth stupidly.

Michael was rising, his attention was turning to Gabriel who shifted uneasily when a wind finally picked up, blowing around the stagnate air. Something cold but not unwelcome as Sam blinked a few time, and he knew both of the archangels were frowning.

It wasn’t natural. He knew it instantly as Michael was looking up into the sky. A glance, and yep, Gabriel in that same pose and he was suddenly terrified. Maybe it was Raphael to come rain on their parade or something even worse. Something to come and take away everything they had just done and shred it to pieces.

_‘Dean.’_

Cas was afraid and he couldn’t even hold onto him really. Couldn’t tell him it was going to be alright and he was horrified of the thought maybe the angel was about to just cease to be.

“Oh,” Michael got out, something near joy in his voice, Sam clutching his arm as everything turned into blinding white.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

 

 

** Epilogue **

 

He stopped, wiping a little trickle of sweat that was on his forehead trying to make a beeline down into his eye. It was an unseasonably warm day and they had been lucky enough to get it while making a stopover at Bobby’s. Would let him do some much needed maintenance on Baby’s engine before winter rolled in here in earnest.

“Hello, Dean.”

A sharp crack, the instant pain in his skull from his head rebounding off the raised hood and he grimaced before making sure he was clear before attempting to stand up straight again. He’d yell, he really would but Cas was all worried and sad eyed and he already was reaching out to tap away that pain. Dean waved a hand, since part of it was his fault even if angels did seem to have a penchant for sneaking up on people.

“It’s fine, Cas. Everything good? All quiet on the heavenly front?”

A small head tilt, something confused and just plan Cas and he smiled at that.

“Yes. Michael sends his regards along with his belief that your methods are sloppy and in need of improvement.”

“Great. I’ll get right on that,” he muttered because damn, even in heaven Mike was an asshole. “So what brings you here to our little corner of life?”

Cas paused, seeming uncertain as Dean got the beer he was slowly working on. Hey, had to make use of the last really good weather that they’d probably see for quite a while. He frowned though, Cas looking like he was unsure and shouldn’t be here.

“I only came to ensure you were alright. I will go.”

“Hey, Cas. Wait a minute.”

Those eyes all intense and focused back on him and he shifted a bit. It was still weird to think that this creature had been riding around inside him when he just looked like Cas. Same dorky clothes and bed ridden hair, tie never straight and the coat hanging off him like Cas simply wore what he came with because he didn’t understand the concept of fabric whatsoever.

Didn’t matter if it had been six months or six hundred years, he’d never really get over that.

Of course, he seemed to run out of words to say because he didn’t know what to supply. Fortunately, for once Cas managed not to be awkward and turned his attention to the car.

“Is it broken?”

“What? No, just doing a tune up.” Dean watched as Cas studied it and he wondered if the angel knew anything about cars at all. He’d barely seen him after all that went down and he didn’t know if this was crossing some kind of line. “Want to learn?”

“I would enjoy that very much.”

And way too earnest. Dean shook his head.

“Okay first, you need to lose a couple of layers there,” he said waving and got a questioning look. “That coat and jacket you’ve got going on. Way too much. Would get grimy.”

Amazingly, Cas didn’t just point out that he could wave it all clean again as he dutifully removed the requested items.

“Alright, then roll up your sleeves.”

Well, undoing the cuffs seemed fine but Cas just shoved them up absently. Dean sighed a little under his breath, putting down his beer.

“Look, like this,” he said, not really thinking it through as he pulled one back down and rolled it carefully up. Those eyes were watching him intently, taking in everything. “Keeps them up a bit better, so they don’t come down when you don’t want them too.”

“I understand,” came the low answer, rolling up the other.

“Okay, so now you just need a beer and –“ he cut himself off because he had forgotten. “Never mind, that part probably wouldn’t be great for you.”

“Gabriel has been teaching me to taste as you do. I have gotten better at it,” Cas said, picking up an unopen bottle and opening it, waiting for his next instruction.

“What? Like it only tastes like molecules half the time?”

“Essentially,” came the response, something with a smile there.

“Would have thought your whole God built body would have come ready made with that.”

“I am grateful that I am restored, let alone this.”

So quiet. Dean swallowed, clearing his throat because they still didn’t talk about that. Or that some nights he felt a bit more hollowed out then he should but not as bad as when God had decided to bop on by their field to help them out as the wind. Or whatever the hell that had been.

He also was determined never to see Michael that happy again. That had been terrifying. Angels should not smile like that.

Cas was watching him, still waiting and he couldn’t stand around being all girly if he wanted to get somewhere before the sun went down and the weather turned. Taking a chug of his own beer he motioned towards the car, Cas coming to join him.

“Okay, let’s start with something easy. Checking fluids. Sound alright?”

“Of course.”

He glanced over, Cas all intent and waiting to see the mystery of how one checked the oil and he smiled. He couldn’t help it, an honest to God true smile as he began their lesson.


End file.
